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1 -

' ' woodworkers and Legitimacy:

-_. The IWA in Canad.a, 1937-1957

by

Stephen Gray \

B.A., Simon Fraser University, 1977 /

' 5

M.A., Simon Fraser University, 1982 *

" A THESIS SUBMITTED IN P A R m L FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS

in the - Department of History

O S tephen Gray

SIMON FRASER UNIVERSITY

July, 1989

AH rights reserved. This thesis may not be reproduced in whole" or in part, by photocopy or other means, without perrnissi-on of the author.

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ISBN 0-315-5928'3-4

P

D E G R E E :

T 7 1 T L E O F T H E S I S :

A P P R O V A L +

i i

WOODWORKERS A N D L E G I T I H A C Y ; " T-HE I W A I N C A N A D A , 1937-1957". '

3

C H A I R : D A V I D ROSS

H I S T O R Y D E P A R T H E N T

. C r A T E A P P R O V E D : J u l y 7, 1989 -------------------------------*---

PARTIAL C O P Y R I GHJ L LCENSE

I. herebywgrant t o Simon ~ r a s - e r ' U 9 i v e r s i t y t he r i g h t t o lend i my t h e s i * ~ , p r o j e c t o r extended essay ( A e t i t l e o f whigh i s shown be\ow) - / t o 3 s e r - 6 o f t he Simon Fraser U n i v e r s i t y L i b r a r y , and t o make p a r t i a l o r /

/ '

;ing.le cop ies o n l y f o r such users o r i n response t o a ;equest fl'o,m ;ke 4

l i b r a r y o f any o t h e r u n i v e r s i t y , o r o t h e r educa t i ona l i n s t i t u t i o n , o n "

i t s own b e h a l f o r f o r one o f i t s use rs . I f u r t h e r agree t h a t permiss ion 0 .

f o r ' m u r t i p l e copy ing o f t h i s work f o r s c h o l a r l y purposes may be g r a m d 4

' . by me o r t he Dean o f Graduate S t u d i e s . I t is understood t h a t 'copying i' o r p u b l i t a t i o n o f t h i s work f o r f i n a n c i a l ' ga in s h a l l n o t be a l l ",ye

s Q

/ w i t h o u t my w r i t t e n pe rm iss ion

a

T i t l e o f T h e s i s / P r o j e c t x tended Essay.

. n "w-oodworkers and L e g i t i r r i a c y : The IWA i n c ,anada: 19'17 - 1952 I I

-9

i

Autho r : /

( s i g n a t u r e )

'Duiing Zhe late 1930s and early 1940s, as part of a broad Nonh A c2eIjcan' - - .,

Ill ( .

phenomenon of industrial militancy and labour 1 . a ~ reform, the International Woodwork& i

of Amqrica (IWA) became- recognized as the legitimate bargaining,wlency for most ,

J

woodworlC*ers throughottt the Pacific coast. In Briti'qh Columbia, as a basis for \

i b

i \

' consolidating trade unionism and furthering the dass struggle within the important fores~ +

1 %

industry, a well-organized cadre of communist q , trade URion militants channelled the 8 t: - 4

;= \ : syndicalist and revalutiomiry traditions of earlier twentieth century woodworker i" , '

organizations into ~ 6 t d c t One of the IWA, and into compliance *ith state inhtitutions - -

govkrnihg industrial relations ha t emerged duringSWorld War T&O: 1 .p

By 1948, though, the quest for legitimacy had entrammelled the

a of District One in a restrictive web of institutional, bureaucratic and po tical "relationships / I

from which they Sought escape by severing ties with the union thiy had s&ggled hard to i ? -

establish. Their fledgling woodworkers' Industrial Uaion of ~ a n a d a , considefed

illegitimate byboth the state and the mainstream labour movement, attracted only a small

minori'xy of woodworkers and enjoyed a very short, unremarkable history. B

Through a detailed examination of union, industry and stzkerecords bf industrial

' r e d o n s activity, this thesis provides both narrative and analysis of a complex course of

evcnrs leading from the era of the open shop, through the attainment of union recognition

and a.period of consolidation, to a final confrontation in 1947-48 within the Canadian IWA r .

C

between two distinct visions of trade union piactice. 5 + .. a

I *. Ultimately, the early, militant w d w d r k e r traditioh, subsumed within communist . .

industrial unionism, proved to be in contr&ction with the institutional structures governing

% relations between latmur and capital in postwar Canada. The post-1 948 leaders of IWA

District One more closely reflected the emerging North American reality in their approach to

trade unionism and industrial relations than did their predecessors. Out of the intense

struggles of the 1930s and 40s. a full-blown business unionism emerged by the latter

i=

1950~ & the governing programme of the modern Canadian IWA, albeit a programme not

universally accepted by rank-and-file woodworkers. e *

" To.my family

My thanks to Allen Seager for his encouragemeqt, patience and understanding over .% c 1

the years. %I

'% .+= I am grateful for financial support prgvided by Simon Fraser University, i n

r . .@

particul& through the C.D. Nelson Memorial ~raduate Scholarship. ' *

Table of Contents ,

- Approval ,

~ b s t c $ t

- .. --.-- wledgements , " -- I

List of Tables

List of Abbreviations

~ i s t of I.-+&& in IWA District One

~ntroduction ' k - .

a One 1930s: Era of the Blacldist and the Open Shop . ,

Two The War Years: Labour Market, Capital Formation, and Union Strategy 46

Three The Quest for Legitimacy: The IWA Yersus the ICA Act

Four The Batoe of the Charlottes: The End of the Open Shop "r 101 o

Consolidation Five

Six

. . I Seven

Eight

1946: Negotiations , -

'1946: Stnke

1947: Restructuring the ~ndustr i i Relationship

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

1947 ~ e ~ o t i a h o n s : Compliance

1947-48: Confrontation

1947-48: Regrouping . 1948 ~egotiations: '~egahsm ~ r i u m ~ h a n t ' . ' - 1948: The Split -

Epilogue: The New W A

Conclusion " ,

List of Records and Papers Cited in Notes --

Notes

Bibliography;

Table

Number of Time-Lost Disputes in BC, 1939-43

Comparison of Lumber Reduction and Expoxts ~ r i h s h ~olurnbid ' '152 (Coast Only), Washihgton and Oregon -

&

Average S ~ m p a g e Price per Thousand Board Feet Vancouver 154 Forest DistribfTimber Sales I

AFL . .

APL

American Fkxkmtion of Labour

Alberni Pacific Lumber Company

British Columbia Federation of Labour I BCFL

British Columbia Loggers' Association BCLA

Bloedel, Stewart and Welch Limited

Cooperative Commonwealth Federation CCF +

* CCL Canadian Congress of Labour P

Congress of Industrial Organizations .

Canadian Manufacturers' Assodation 1 i

* *? CIO

",r

. Communist Party of Canada - -

Cornrnuni,st Party of the Uhited States of America

Canadian Westkm Lumber Company

Decision Bulk& 17 +- G I .* L

Forest Induskal Relations Limited

Industriat Conciliation and Arb'itration Act

I&lustrii~onciliation and Arbitration Act, 1947

B

* FIR'

,ICA Act .

ICA Act (1947) n

E

Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Act, 1947, Amendment Act,, 1948 .. c -

- . ' Industrial ~ i s ~ u f e s Investigation Act ta

. ICA Act (1948)

ID1 Act ?

ILMA - Interior Lumber Manufacturers' Association 3

International Longshoremen's and ~afehousemen's Union

lndustiial T...lber Mills Limited

International Woodworkers of America

Industrial Workers of @e World . -

LPP

LRB

LSWU. .

Labour Progressive Party

Labour ~e la t io i s Board

Lumber and Sawrmll-Workers' Union

NAM

NLRB

NSS

. - f;

OBU

PABC

Lumber Workers' Industrial Union . ,

National Archives of Canada

National Association of Manufacturers - National Labor Relations ~ o k d -

National Selective Service

National Wai Labour Board

One Big Union -

Public Archives'of British Columbia

PCLB ? Pacific Coast Labour ureau

R W ~ Regional War ~ a b o w h o a r d / a

/'

TLC Trades and Labour Congress of ~ a n a d a / . '

W R B Trade Union Research Bureau Y

UAW United Automobile Workers

UBCJ United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners

UBC-SC University of British Columbia Library - Special Collections Division .

UE United,Elecnical, Radio and ~ a c h i n e Workers

UNRRA United Nations ~ e l i e k and Rehabilitation Administration

USW United S tee1 Workers of America I

.s.

VLM 0 C

Victoria Lumber and Manufacturing Company - 9

. WIUC Woodworkers' Industrial Union ofl~anada

WUL Workers Unity League

1-7 1 Vancouver (mainiand coast and the Qumn Charlotte lsland~)~ logging local b

i-80 Courtenay and surrounding area a 8

1-85 Port ?bemi . 1-1 18 Victoria -

. . 1-217 Vancouver mill local

1-357 New Westriiinster

Mission Traser Valley)

Clanbrook (east Kootenay)

Kamloops

Princeton (includmg south Okanagan) P

C

Kelowna (north Okanagan)

* - Prince George (northewinterior)

Nelson (west Kootenay)

When, therefore, I spoke of history in an earlier lecture as a dialogue beeween past and present, I should rather have called it a dialoope between the events of the past and progressively emerging future ends. The historian's interpretation of the past, his selection of the significant and the releyant, evolves wiih the progressive emergence of new goals.'

J - -1 - E.H. Carr

%

JJuuamm ,

Beginning in the late 1920s, there emerged, out of the ruins of the old Lumber

. Workers7 Industrial Union (LWIU), a new band of militants dedicated to the idea of * . '

bringing trade unionism to the woodworking industry of,British Columbia. Thi I

communists, leftover syn&calists,,and other nondescript radicals coalesced in the mid- \

= 1930s to form a new version of the LWIU. The appearance of this fledgling union '

.C

coincided with a wave of labour organization across North American industry, given P

impetus by New Deal labour law reforrn in 'the United States. American trade union - -

organizers looked to a helpful, if not benevolent, s&te in their attempts to fdrge industry- -

wide bargaining.klationships with some of capid's biggest and toughest employers. With ,

'the success of industrial unionism in New Deal America clearly in mind, woodworker -z. A s

organizers in ~ r i t i s h Columbia (f is t in the LWIU and later, in its su&essor, the . 3

=+%

Ltemational Woodworkers of America (IWA) looked to the Canadian and provincial state

~ ~ c t u r e s for legisla~ive suppon. Legitimation by the state would assist them in . "urmounting the problem of organizing a transient and traditionally individualistic

workforce in an industry dominated by the blacklist. These organizers believed legal

recognition and sig?ed contracts were the keys to consolidating their h i o n in the camps

and mills of British Columbia.

Through the eady years of the war, regardless ofethe shifting line of the Communist ii, -4

Party, the leader; of the British ~o lumbia District (District One) of the IWA doigedly

pursued those bade union objectives. don after a successful recognition smke on the I

Queen Charlotte Islands in October 1943, and with the help of industrial. relatiqns reform at

both the provincial and federal levels, District One achieved its fmt "industry-wide"

contract 6n the coast* During the succeeding two'ytars, it set about the less glorious tasks

of consolidating its organization, attaining full membership, and &engthening its

contractual position a s b u g k i n g agent. These years of consolidation coincided with a

period of wartime accommdation between capital and labour across North America. But r

moderatio*? in Dismct One was dictated by the internal requi&ents'bf the trade un&, not

the policies of international communism or'those of the Canadian state.

With the end of the war, however, a period of Nod American industrial relatibns

reform and of wartime accommodation came to an end. Similarly, an era during which

* communists were able easily to meld their political programhe with industrial aade union

activity was brought to an abrupt halt by renewed Soviet-American hostility, and by a re-

emergence of conservatism arndqst capitalists, legislators and trade union biueaucrks. In

District One of the IWA, the change was marked most dramatically in 1946 by a prolonged

37-day snik'e. The District leadership attempted to turn this post-war "catch-up" strike into

the spearhead of a national movement for a radical reconstruction of the economy and

society. w ~ i the same tirne,'British Columbia's industrialists, with the aid of the provincial

state, were moving sharply to the right in an effort to recover ground lost to the l abur s

movement during the war. The .I946 strikes by the IWA and other'British Columbia

unions provided an exceLLenf &text for legslative action agknst organized labour.

The District One suategy of tying the horse of trade union organization so closely to

the can of state legitimation, was quickly called ihto cpesti&by the1947 passage of Bill

39. This bill, and a subsequent one in 1948, amended the pro*Mlridusmal Gonciliation

and Arbitration Act (ICA Act) spec~fically SO as to restrict, if not a1 ether prohibit, radical

attempts at intepating economic and political action within a collective bargaining context. *

This new Legislation s e n d to widen a growing split in Disrict One between the forces of '

moderate "pure-and-simple" unionism, and the leftist cadre of militant "political" trade

unionists. Because of these internal divisions, the mighty woodworkers' union, rather \ \

than lead +e British Columbia working classinto a direct political confrontation with the - -1

provincial state over the ICA Act amendments, was fox* to capitulate to the new

legislative reality in its own collective bargaining.

During 1947, and into 1948, the District leadership chafed at the new legislative bit

rput in its mouth. As the post-war w d w o r k i n g labour force grew dramatically, the

original militant cadre was diluted. The overly bureaucratic, "hot-house" union that grew

up during the war withinthe statestructuies of legitimation and control, proved to h an

inappropriate vehicle, through which to ignite a new militancy within the tanks of the I

, woodworkers. Despite quixotic attempts at remobilizing the rank-and-file behind a radical

collective bargaining agenda, the District leadership fell victim to the forces of pure-and-

simple trade unionism that it had inadvertently called into being during the'legitirnation

process. The triumph of the socalled "white bloc" moderates of District One, and the final

dep- of the communist cadre in October 1948 in& the lean and militant Woodworkers' 4

Industrial Union of Canada (WRJC) was a logical, if not pre&dained, outcome of the quest

for legitimacy during the years prior to 1946. Y

A bnef note on the title of the thesis will conclude this summary. The I W A entered

British Columbia and kgan organizing north of the international boundary as a natural

expansion into the Canadian section of the North American west coast forest h d u s v . But

+ - j u s t as the w-d'did not remain an exclusively west coast unioh in the United States, - neither 1'

/

did it intend to do so in Canada. The organizational thrust into the interior of British

Columbia during 1944-46 was the first step in what was viewed as a muph broader PI

eastward expansion into Albena, and then on into central Canada-particularly ~ u e d e c .

During the period 1 have chosen to study, it is true, the W A ' s Canadiqn operations were'

resmcted almost exclusively to the Pacific province. But it is crucial to an unders&ding. of

this thesis that the IWA cadre in Eritish Columbia was originally part of an international

union dedicated to organizing woodworkers on as broad an industrial basis as possible.

District One leaders did not intend their district to remain a provincial adjunct to an 7

otherwise American union. -

Furthemore, I have tried to cast this story u;ithin.the more general context of labour \

history in Canada during the 1930s &d 1940s. The IWA played a significant role in the

development of industrial relations policy on a riational scale-a role that has not been -

previously appreciated. Finally, the general theme of the struggle for legitimacy, as it i s .

applied here to ~ r i l s h Columbia woodworkers; is certainly an integral chapter in the

history of the Canadian working class as a whofe--;one with serious ramifications for the'

present condition of the labour movement. That point should not be lost amidst the * ,

particularism of provincial or regional history. While this thesis is set on a provincial

stage, it addresses issues of national, if not international scope. 1 .

When one embarks upon the Ph.D. dissertation-one ought to be equipped with a

fundamental purpose, if not explicitly c l w to the mind, at least embedded in the origin of

the work, i n the being of the author. There.must be some justification for the project, both

- to self and to others, as part of its very definition and legitimacy. That justification may

only realize its true shape k d nature in the course of completion. It may contain within it

many layers. The process of peeling off the layers, of coming to a full realization of what

the thesis is about, sustains one's interest to the end. The historian's method of gradually -

uncovering "mth" through a process of mediation or dialogue between empirical evidence

and subjective disposition2 bears its fruit in the becoming, or coming into concrete being of

the initial notion of the thesis. Only at the end, when one fully discerns the meaning of the 2.

project, can it be properlp'inrrdluced in all its layers and dimensions. ,

I I

.This pbject emerged as part of 4 attempt to turn in my doctoral studies away from I ._ verly-embirical, narrow, if not p ochiil frame pf reference in which my previous + : :

adtate work had been cast. In an effort td infuse hi i tor id research and writing with a

ore solid thyoretical perspecdve I agai;o Mar* with the question: how can .

y work breek through the of modem historical empiricism and

- t come a true synthesis of of history that itself becomes an -

instrument of the historical working o t of the class struggle (while at the same time I :' ts academic at all costs was the dreaded i

lthusseriab "bogey" rooms which, in the colourful I

language c/f E.P. to engage in a harmless I

~volutionary psycho-drama, while e same time pursuing a reputable and conventional I

/ntellectual career.")

1 This initial disposition m{ni$sted itself in simultaneous engagement i n trade 9

l*ioq@olitical a rk academic ' Encouraged by an involvement with similarl) I

i "engaged" students in Professor 's grduate seminar, I entered along with thousands

of others in British Days" of 1983, an important contributing

experience to this work. 0

If the Sblidarity stm y,core meaning or lesson forboth labour historian

I and Marxist activist (I be/kg a neop in each category) it appeared to be that' the I ,/

legtirnacy of the existi s and leadershipa legitimacy recognized by

both the working cla assv-had served to disappoint, diffuse and

1 ultimately undermine tance movement against oppression and the

1 erosion of human ts. I received t istorical "fact" not just as a passive outslde I L

academic also as a passi participant on the side of the masses. The

failure of the tr union movement t to seize hold of this mass movement and

synthesize the gglks of the people into one united movement for

change was for me ong many others) disillusioning. A more

seasoned veteran of the labour wars, would, no doubt, not have been soshaken. It was, in

retrospect, to tap into the perspective and insight of those "old-timers" that I t m e d my

work as an academic in the direction of the or+gins, nature and consequences of the era of -

, trade union legitimacy in Canada.

And I turned in the direction of the IWA more precisely because, as I obseded in

1983, it was the specific unwillingness of this largest private sector industriai union in A,? -

British Columbia to transform its particular industrial struggle into a leading component of

a broader social and political struggle that crippled Operation Solidarity. Without the real d

. .

economic muscle of wide-scale jndustria1 action led by this important union, the much-

touted importance of the trade union movement's bank-roll-the main basis of organized

labour's claim to leadership in the Solidarity ~oabtion-amountedto very little in terms of

any mass programme of change. Woodworker President Jack Munro was not just the "fall C

guy" at Kelowna. His so-called accord with Premier Bill Bennett signified the -

collaboration of industrial unions in British Columbia in the government programme to ,

dismantle the emerging power of their public sector counterparts through lay-offs and

changes to the industrial relations system. It also involved complicity in a broad

government progiarnrne aimed at radically curtailing the social and public senices provided

by that sector of workers. Ultimately the accord sipalled acceptance of Social Credit's L.

,-* -. . . participation in the restructuring of welfare capitalism and the post-war compromise with

. . B .--

the organized working class that was taking place across many western industrial "a

so~iet ies .~

The IWA then was an obvious place to enter the historical record, not only because

of its performance in 1983, and its important position within the British Columbia labour

movement throughout the post-war period; obvious as well because of the rich

documentary sources available and'ihe undeveloped nature of the topic wi tk i scholarly

literature. The problem at the time seemed to be not one of sources, or lack of purpose or

direction, but rather one of methodology and scope. -

\

Scope itself was dqfined ultimately and quite simply by the time and reso&e \ ' . -

lirmtations of a Ph.D: student, and by the sheer volume of material available in archival ., - %

depbsitories ind elsewhere on the subject of the forest industry andits chief trade union. p\

'\

In the spirit of my Marxism I had originally conceived of a comprehensive political \

economy of the forest industry in British Columbia, including major sections on working

class culture and indusmd relations. But both the sources and the imnlediate crucible of

experience in British Columbia labour politics led me into the thicket of industrial relations

history from which I was never toemerge. Despite misgivings about not fulfilling my

Marxian imperativeto h d y the totality of relations comprehensively, I proceeded along a

much more (for me) familiar if less challenging path of piecing together'a historical

narrative of industrial relations from miles of microfilm and pages of documents, journals

and papers. But the tedium of the work was often relieved, by the thought that I was not -

just preparing a thesis to be offered up to the academy in the true spirit o'f scholarly

investigation-though I hoped it would be that. I was sustained mainly by an underlying

belief that thls narrative would help explain an important process that had unfolded and that

continued to unfold in British CoIumbia4ne that I had witnessed and participated in

personally. Just what that historical process was, however, was hot immediately apparent

in the fulness and specificity of its meaning.

At first it appeared I was writing an account of the Canadian IWA's participation in

a North America-wide development in iandustrial and working class relations-the

leg t ip t ion and ultimate institutionahtation of the labour movement. As such I could draw

on a rich American and ~ a n a d a * literature on both the war and post war period.5 Then I -- _

encountered the "white bloc," internal union conflict and 1948-the split of the existing

Eadership' away from District One of the IWA. The theme of legitimacy and

institutionalization had then to be enriched and enlarged to include the role and nature of A

communist leadership in the woodworkers' union, and since the IWA was the most

important union at the time i n British Columbia, also the nature of relations between the .

Communist Party's political and industrial arms. The relationship, theqpdbetween r '

communist leadership and the'brive for trade union lepmmcy had to be worked out witliin . .

. . an analysis of communist or "revolutionary" industrial unionism. Given the post- 19 19

- fusion of the pol i t id and industrial wings of the socialist movement within the strucn..rgs

of the Compmist Party, and given the leading role of the indusmal trade unions within the

Party structure in Canada, how did one interprer the drive for legitimacy through to 1945,

and the equally powerful drive towards an apparent sectarian militancy during 1946-5-48? '

The key appeared to lie within the sphere of industrial relations, bui also involved the

world-historical shifts aft& World War Two, and the parallel transformation of state

institutions regulating labour unions. But what would this analysis mean to my argument,

carefully constructed through the fust five chapters, that in indusmal matters, the Pkty's

larger political agenda was always subordinated to or subsumed within the more immediate

trade union agenda? How to sort our-the problematic relations between industrial relations

in the woods and the larger world conflict between capitalism and communism eventually -

k a m e the major project of the chapters on 1946-4K6

If in the end, however, the Party trade unionists in the.IWA came through this crisis

with the integrity of their commitment first and foremost to thcir'industrid union intact, ,

I why was it necessary for them-to part comp&iy with the existing form of that union? To

- answer thij question, it was necessary to return to the original problem of the inner

meaning of legitimacy and institutionalization to a union cadie committed, in the final

analysis, to using the trade union structure as a leading instrument of social and political

change in the duection of sociahsm, if not true communism. If, in fact, institutionalization 4

ultimately proscribed the project of synthesizing industrial and political activity within the

existing structures of trade unionism and industrial relations, then the departure of the

District on; leadeis in 1948 might be understood in a more profound dimension than that

provided in conventional political accounts of the general impact of the cold war, anti-

communism and the intervention of the I W A Lnternational and Canadian social d g m m t s . */

If in turn, tht 1948 split could be understood in structural terms relating to the very K . .

nature of trade union prachce and industrial relations in British Columbia, then the mystery -

. . behind the IWA's apparent lack of enthusiasm for entering a broader caalition struggle - '

against government oppression and the erosion of human rights in 1983 might start to be -

kxfilained. Not, of course, fully since bepeen the 1948 split and the 1983 Kelowna

accord rnuch7histox$ transpired. Only a section of that history is covered in a final chapter % +

on the 1950's. And if the conclusions to that chapter point clearly ahead to 1983, they also Y I

look back to the early days of woodworker radicalism in British Columbia, even to the

IWW. While this study falls somewhat short of offering a full narrative iriterpretation of ; the background to Jack Munro's flight to Kelowna on that fateful November night, it does

*- .

finally, and in spite of 'itself, offer up some much more significant conjectures (not C

definitive conclusions) which I would offer here as the "unpeeled" purpose and justification

of this dkse~mion.

What 1 'lave entitled bodwo workers and Legitimacy: he IWA in Canada, 1937-

1957" for purpwes of objective and conventional academic labelling, could perhaps "be 6

more appropriately sub-titted "The Demise of the ~ 'a rx ian d&olutionary Tradition in

British Columbia." A movement with roots ip ;he 1880s and 90s, in the coal mines, the C

forests and the urban labour halls of the pre-.World War One era; that exploded in a

paroxysm of class confrontation in 1919-20, and then revamped itself into the structures of t

the Communist Party during the 1920s and 30s; finally died ~ i t h the invention of the

~oodworke r s ' Industrial Union of Canada in October 1948.' r ~ h i s so-called "October 6 ,

Revolution" Ijl reality sounded the death knell for a Marxist practice in Britisp Columbia. ,+

-

The split of'the IWA cadre signified a decisive and historical break between industrial and

political struggle in British Columbia, if not in Canada. That is not to say that individuals . . n *

and political groupings within the trade union movement and ,Ieft parties have not continued ,

to fight for an integration, or reintegration of work place struggle and deeper social and

political transformation. But 1948 signalled a decisive structural division-a labour

C

movement, broadly-defmed, transforming itself, and,being transformed into a trade union -

..*

m ~ v e r n e n t . ~ Without one foot in the concrete world of class strugglej the Marxist I*

revolutionary traditign in British Columbia was left gradually to %ther.bn the thin a e s of

politiyil sectarianism and academic discourse. The Communist Party of I3ritish! Columbia,

J < . 5.

left ithout a real base in the.working class, quickly lokits direc~on agd focus and found '

itself submerged within the al5ssaact reformism of the anti-irnperialiq Canadiar) peace A d . I

independence movements oE-thC 1950s. In short, in 1948 the revolutionary left in British

Colu&ia was cut off from its source; ;he ~ r i t 4 ~ o l i m b i a working class cut off from its t

Gz .

3 ,*

phiti id and historical direction. " - p

.SI*

What does this admittedly conjechral conc sion mean far my Marxism, for my e .

conirnitmenr as an academic to make my scholarly work part of the existing class struggle? ' I

In spite of my inability to develop a total analysis of relations in the forest industry, this

work is still infused with the Marxist spirit of synthesizing theory and practice inasmuch as

my historical investigation proceeded from the concrete and particular, asked qvesrions of - empirical data in order to provide a concrete theoretical interpretation of an historical ,

dl

process that contained objective and practical answers of relevance to the situation. /

3 Unfortunately whatever objective be drawn from &is attempt to live o y t h e

/

0

/ <

Marxian paradigm must fall on they may give rise to lively debate

within the halls of academe, or inspire ,an "existing" mass /

/

working class movement for social change? I

I ,

Does that conclusion necessarily invalidate a M,amist approach to historical stupes? t

/' ?/ '

/'

I think not. Rather it necessitates a reevaluation of the notion of Marxian - /

have termed a Marxian ddposition (since I cannot claim to have either

explained here a thoroughgoing Marxist methodology) to historical

academic work with the goals of objective smggle as

tempered with the realizationathat Marx misjudged

worki ng class would / play, at least for the alfpost century /

and /'

one-half after he

discovered i t That is not.to say he was wrong about the pruper and desirable end result of r Y

human history-that is, comrrmnisrnl1 But as the era of the industrid working class as d ,.

the quintessential manifestation of human alienation is superceded by new forces and

relations of production, it is now past time that those who still struggle towards a "&ly i

human" world both move beyond and .subsume the Marxian paradigm. For labour

historians who belong to that category of "individuals for a human end to history," that , . I

means approaching the subject of our academic work as a finite, historically-specific

phenomenon, the study of which ought to be undertaken with a view to a more general +

application to the existing situation than simply enlightening, inspiring or otherwisb aiding

the industrial proletariat in its antedated historical mission. If that conclusion is the

"unpeeled" inner meaning that was embedded in the origins of this study, then the process - 4

. of uncovering and giving conczete f o e to && "more general application". will perhaps

become the implicit jusM~cation of my next undemking.

, Historiomphy 3.

Both ;he subject matter of this dissertation and the institutional approach I have

chosen are both "old staples" of labour history in Canada. What justifies a new endeavour a

in this old field? The Canadian IWA, especially during its formative years of organization

and legitimation, has never been properly studiedw What little of substance there is has all

but ignored the important subject of industrial relations, focussing rather on politics, and on

On the legitimation of labour in Canada, the literature is considerably more

developed,.but focuses too rigidly on the federal state, and on the specifically central -

Canadian context of CIO industrial unionism. My analysis attempts to enrich our .

understanding of this key process in twentieth century labour history by enlarging the

scope of Canadian studies to include British Columbia labour; by focussing more

specifically on the role of the provincial state; and, by drawing out some important linkages

. J

and contrasts with a barallel American history;13 But, as the history I have chdsen to write

involves d m ' s dialogue between* these past events and "pro&ssively emerging future," ,

4 - ' this study also attempts to contribyte a specifically .historical dimension to recent work on

. . - the so-called "assault on trade union freedoms" which Panitch And Swartz see as bringing

\ ' an end tqan era'of free collective bargaining with a "turn to coercion': in the i970s iyd

'I

80s.14 Bourgeois reforms, these authors predict in hindsight, "however much they aie the b

product of class struggle, a& not without their contradictions. Left unchallenged they c h ' I

undetmine the very conditions which called them into existence, opening the way for future t?

P *, .

defeats."15 My thesis can be viewid as very much a casi study making more qoncrete ahd .' d

7 4 kxplicit'thosecontradictions. ' e 1

* - i

If this "staple" study has forwardelinkages to the 1980s and the "future defeats" *

embedded in the strategy ,of trade union institutionalization, it also has backward khkages to - t

. . t he 1920s and what Larry Peterson has termed the origins of communist labbur unionism:.

Peterson's gzeral mddel posits a convergence oftwo distindt forms of left-wing activity .

afier World War Ohe. With the discrediting of the conventionaLparliamentary Marxism of . the ~~cond~lnternat ibnal , "Rbvolutionary sOci~fists found the key to' uniting political

0

struggle with the economic militancy of workers in the .structure of the industrial ,

I

rnovementk"16 At the same time, "syndicali&s ,and other indbsmal activists," who had

previously eschewed political activity in favoq of more d ~ e c t economic struggle, "turned

to the Comintern because they were searching for a new strategy after the failure of their

, own industrial approach to revolution." The latter found the communists congenial a 9

partners since the Comintern's programme for rev~kt ion was heavily influenced by the

" "experience of indusmal action bgtween 1917 and'1920."17 But while there was a very' . , - a

harmonious marriage of convenience with the Communist in mucb.of western

Europe, Peterson, in' his own version of- American exceptionalism, 'emphasizes that the

union of OBU and IWW leaders with North American communists foundered on the 9

i

uncompromising stubbornness of the indusmal militants and the sectarianism of the Party

- in ~ & d a and the United States. North American communists, while incorporating

i lessons of industrial militancy into their larger economic strategies, argues Peterson, tedded

1

"to s ipercde &d transform" rather ihan directly carry forward the earlier indushal 4 B

tradition. l8 1 - ' C

i

The research I have done on the woodworkers indicates that this latter model'is not ' B

so clearly the case. Rather, these earlier traditions lived on sp-prisingly directly into the

1-930s and 40s through the Lumber Workers' Industrial Union andkinto the WA-CIO,

however uneasily alongside the emergence of trade union bureaucratization and the

- institutionalization of industrial relations. Peterson's general n&-North American model a

explains the case more accurately. The Cornintern, or more accurately in this particular. e 0

case, the Party leaders in the woodworkers' union, "incorporated much of the programme" i

of the militant pre-1920'loggers into their approach not only 10 revolution, but, more

specifically, to trade union practice. That is not to sai there was perfect unity; but in spite t

of the drive for, and attainment of legitimacy during the 1940s, there was considerable ---

continuity in the history of unionism in 'the hoods from the Wobblies through to the

Woodworkers' Industrial union of Canada.

Contrary to the characterization that both Ian Angus and Ian Radlforth give to either

Workers Unity League (WUL) unions in general, or the LWJU in particular, in the British

' Columbia context the Lumber Workers' 1ndus&al Union was not a daal or sectarian, h t

;cry much a main-stream trade union. Radforth explains the easy transition t h e : 1 9

communists in the pre-1928 LWIU in Ontario made to the insurrectionary policies of ihe

Cornintern during the so-called "third period:' (1928-35) by the'fact that the union "had 0 .

i

.never been a mainstream, AFL union."19 On the-other hand, after 1935, there was a %

suddep break as the LWIU disbanded, and "left-wing aclivists" streamed into the ATL's .9p

,Lumber and Saw Mill Workers' Union, replacing "class-war rhetoric" with strategies of %

collective bargaining and signed a g r e e r n e n t ~ . ~ ~ Angus, for his part, belittles the

achieveinents of the wurszl<ions generally with the charge of a dogmatic sectarianis@that

undermined whatever "important advances" the Party had been making in the unions up to

1928.21 But hiianalysis excludes the case of thk British Columbia woodworkqs' union \ -

wbich &en during the WUL phase was very much the mainstr&m; in fact, the only viable

organizatidn in the British Columbia woods. And to the extent that nhe &WJU laid

important foundations fm, and very.smoothly melded orga.izationally'in~o the IWA (in 6

- d

spite of the brief AFL interlude of 1936-37), the "third p e r i d ' in British Columbia can be x

seen as not only not undermining Party advance's in the trade unlon field, but rather

building towards the organizational breakthrough of the 1940s. For Radforth, the i935

,shift in Comintern line was decisive in bringing P h y unionists into the woodworker

rnainstre&n via the ~ n i t d ~ r o t h e r h o o d of Carpentersand Joiner$of America (UBCJ). It

also signalled the ado &on of a "new approach" to industrial relations in general involving 8 I

4, " it-' -

much closer relations with the statemd with Ontario's version of "labour policies found in

President Roosevel t 's New Deal that were encouraging collective bargaining south af the

border.

similar

"22 In Chapters Two through Four below the argument is clearly made that a -

6 industrial strategy in British Columbia was very much rooted not in Cornintern

policy, but in the experience of the Parlf%nionists themselves trying to organize a kansient 7

workforce along the sprawlirig and unlimited vastness of the British Columbia coast.

But. if f h , k ~ ~ in Canada was very much a mainstream trade union, what was {he

'specific nature of communist labour unionism in the British Columbia woodworking

~rrdustry? Many of the early leaders in ~ i s t r i ccone of the IWA, men who would continue

to dominate the affairs of the union through the 1940s, were either members or fellow

travellers of the Communist Pany. They comprised a cadre of militant trade unionists who, .A@

4 -3

along with fellow communists in other British Columbia industrial unions of the day, were

.not notable s k i d theoreticians. While sqmeohe like Hjalmar Bergren may have cherished +-

- hooks by M a n and Lennin as valued possession^,^^ in general what made these men

"communist" trade unionists was not their understanding of, or belief in, historical

materialism, nor even a dogged adherence to the P m y line. In fact, many of these men

were noted for their'inattention to broader ideological and party work, and detachment from

the more general political concerns of the Party. What distinguishes them was their '

approach to union work, which, during the organizational phase of industrial unions in .* 4

Canada, was particularly effective and won them a broad following. As Norman Penner

has argued,. "The Communists who won and were able to hold leading trade-union

executive positions were accorded those offices not as revolution&ies but for their ,

excellence in trade-union functions, which are, by their very nature in capitalist society,

reformist.'Q4 Atthl same time, the pa& viewed itself as a vanguard or organized minority

movement in the trade unions representing both the long-term political, and more immediate

industrial interests of>$& workers. As Nelson Lichtenstein has so aptly written of

communists in the CIO uring this period, although their "commitment to the Soviet Union &

d as the symbol of the socialist ideal r9mainea inviolable and provided the esseniial

ideological element that engendered loyalty in the party cadre, the actual trade union

activities of the parry came to d&er l&e from those of unibnists in the CIO main~tream."~

From the point of view of the press, government officials, and political opponents

in the CCF and elsewhere, communists were identifiable by their slavish adherence to ..

Moscow. From the perspective of the workers in the woods or on the mil l~f lwr, the

communists were often the ones who had a sense of organizational purpose, a clear line on

trade union objectives, and the tenacity to go up against the rough and readyv men who ran i'

the lumber compaiies. It was in the task of producing that kind ofhilitant vanguard in the

IWA during the 1940s that Bergren, Morgan and company particuldy defined themselves .

as Party eade unionists. And it was in their radical reorientation after 1945 of their union's

institutional relationship with a -F restructuring capitalism and state apparatus, as well as with

their own rank-and-file from whom they had grown bureaucratically estranged, that

Pntchett, Dalskog and others continued to define their brand of trade unionism in the -

tradition of the post-1919 political-industrial c ~ n v e r g e n c e . ~

Sources If there is some historiographical justification in pursuing this old staple of labour

L

history anew, without recourse to new or previously under-utilized 'sources th$ project

would still have questionable merit as scholarly historical writing. As it turned out,, . ,

previous writers, for a variety of reasons, have not thoroughly mined earlier available

historical sources, as' in the case of the Pritchett-IWA collection and its rich offerings on the

subject of industrial relations. This collection is now very conveniently complemented by

the IWA records contained in a massive University of British Columbia Library acquisition

of material from the Trade Union Researph Bureau which acted (as.wel1 as during its earlier \

incorporation as the Pacific Coast Labout Bureau) as the research and industrial relations

consultant of the pre- 1948 IWA. A voluminous collection of records on microfilm of the I

post-1948 IWA, containing several important files , . on the cofnmunist era as well, has

-relatively recently been made acces~ible to researchers also through the UBC ~ibrary". - spanning both IWA eras from the other side of the industrial relationship is a still

unacquired collection of very important documents housed in the Vancouver offices of

Forest Industrial Relations Ltd.. the industrial relations *arm of the British Columbia >

woodworking industry, and the successor company to Stuart Research Services which

figures so prominently i n the trade union history up to 1949. The minute books of the

British Columbia Loggers' Association, as part of the Council of Forest Industries (COFI) \

papers at UBC are always a source of great interest and richness.

As for the "third" party in this stork-the state-the Provincial Archives of British

Columbia contains very important records of the provincial Department of Labour,

including the first Labour Relations ~ d a r d , many of which have been generally available

for a relatively short time. Records of the federal Department of Labour, and various

brinches of the Canadian wartime bureaucracy housed in the National Archives of Canada ,

have also been consulted i n my neatment of the important period of organization and >

consolidation from 1940 to 1945. All these prime sources have, of course, been I \

supplemented with a variety of published and secondary material. - .

In sum, while the IWA in Canada seems, at fmt glance, to be an old stdry, it is dne

that has never been told from the perspective of historical scholarship, and one to which I

hope I haye at least-provided an introduction. .

/

1930s: Era of the Blacklist and the 0-pen S h o ~

During World War Two a transformation took place in th .e economi

between capital and labour in Canada. Under the impact of wartime demand, economic

output rose by two-thirds, together with enlistment, drying up the pools of surplus labour

left over from the dirty thirties. Between 193.9 and 1945 organized workers doubled their

numbers. Industrial conflict intensified, reaching a peak in 1943. Out of this conjuncture

of productive and labour market forces emerged the first significant institutional adjustment

in t$e cconquct of indusmal relations since the passage of the 1907 Industrial Disputes

Investigation Act.' The IWA, llke several other indusmal unions that had formed in

Canada during the 1930s, was formally recognized by the state and employers as legitimate

bargaining agent for tens of thousands of British Columbia woodworkers.

Over the preceding decade in the British Columbia forest industry, a group of

dedicated, militant and politically committed trade unionists had fought against the

increasingly organized forces of anti-union camp and mill operators. Aided by the

provincial state, the latter dug in their heels to defend the open shopunder which they had

done business largely undisturbed since the demise of the old Lumber Workers' Industrial

Union in the early 1920s. In order properly to understand the organizational breakthrough

in the British Columbia woods during World War Two, it is necessary to review the

background of industrial relations in the province's most important industry in the years

immediately prior to the war, and in particular, to analyze the changing role of the state as it 1

became an increasingly more active participant in what had previously been the largely

unregulated world of "lumkrjacks" and "boss loggers."

I

Since 1929: led by the WUL-affiliated Lumber Workers' Industrial Union, British

Columbia loggers, shingle and lumber workers had fought against wage cuts, piece work,

i4 the blacklist, and for some form of union or p committee recognition. Operating within

a largely laissez-fairg world of industrial seemingly outside the administrative '

i grasp of the Industrial Disputes Investigatio ritish Columbia) Act, workers quit work,

/ struck and picketed when it suited them. n organizing activity, because of limited

resources, focussed on a few large camps an on Vancouver Island and the Lower

Mainland. Strikes flared up quickly over organizers or sudden wage cuts.

Employers retaliated by dismissing entire and enforcing their

b rights with the help of local and provinciai 01ice.~ The British Columbia Loggers

Association (BCLA) camps ran an efficient blaqpist system through the British Columbia

Loggers Employment Agency, managed by aL appropriately named Mr. Black, who

cooperated closely with R.V. Stuart, secretary-m nager of the BCLA. To help the Agency i do its job the BCLA employed the services of at ast one "operative" to carry out "labour

in~estigation."~ 6

When the depression, followed by a $3 thousand feet American duty, hit the b ' 4

lumber industry, the big Association camps an$( mills cut wages, laid off crews and

extracted greater output from those remaining on Wage policy was still a matter for

individual action though some coordination of w es with respect to the all-important

fallers and buckers was attempted through the ofice. LWIU smkes occurred

i in response, in the fall of 1931, at Fraser Mills, the earby Barnet Lumber Company and

Thurston Flavelle in Port Moody, as well as at the large logging camps on Vancouver i Island and the Queen Charlotte Islands. These were1 organizational strikes linked to the

I

world economic crisis. Within the context of the WUL, the LWIU fought for improved

wages and conditions, but also to organize and educate workers for the larger fight against

Typically, the 8 June 1935 &tion of the B.C. Lumber Worka, the official organ of

the LWTU and one of its chief organizing tools, found that the Forest Branch report for

1934 was "shot through with reference to the splendid work of the various Trade

Commissioners and lumber salesmen." But when d e camp and mill owners went looking

for new markets with cheag lumber "the logger and rnillworker took it on the chin in the

form of lower wages and harder work." "We have a right," the editorial concluded, "to

demand a bigger share of that 45 million dollar 'melon' that was pocketed by the timber

pirates, a demand that will-enable us to live a little more decently, at least until we afe able ..--'-7

to enforce the complete control over the industry our~elves."~ /- > -

As British Columbia's lumbermen, with the help of the F / rest Branch and 4 e

V

i federal government, blasted their way back into world-apd e$cially United Kingdo

and commonwealth-markets through an active trade promotion programme built upon the

Ottawa Trade Agreements of 1932-it became all the more essent? for them to hold down

their wage bill and thwart the industrial union drive.. As the industry got back on its feet,

so did the union begin a more concentrated organizational effort. The January 1933

convention drew up a new programme, the principal feature of which was to focus

organizational efforts on one of the major canips. Under the leadership of the Noiwegian-

born logger Ted Gunmd, for the next 10 months the LWIU centred its efforts on the

Menzies Bay camps of Bloedel, Stewart and Welch (BSW), where an essentially

underground union was built up in order to avoid the blacklist. Gunrud's efforts laid the

basis for a major confrontation with the Vancouver Island logging operators in 1934.6

The 1934 general strike of the Vancouver Island logging camps, triggered by the 28

January walkout of 500 Menzies Bay loggers, was carried out in the midst of this

dramatically improving market situation for British Columbia producers. It was the

culmination of a two-year educational and organizational drive by the L W U in the

Vancouver Island camps. This strike featured all the elements of .a laissez-faire industrial

relations battle-a tent city, picket camps, no strike fund, flying picket squads and

leafletting, an "anti-scab" trek and provincial police protection for strike breakers. From

Menzies Bay the strike quickly spread to the Elk River camp at Campbell River and from

there "gathered the weight of an avalanche" according to official union mythology.7

The main issues in the strike, "speed up, death in the woods, higher wages to

, reflect rising log prices, and &right to union representation" were underlined by a head-

on confrontatioi with the anti-union policies d tactics of the organized operators. At the 7 height of the strike the six main logging companies involved, while they refused

throughout to negotiate directly with LWIU officers, reluctantly agreed orally to no

discrimination against strikers and recognition of camp committees. Happily for them they

were not to be held to this promise as the union rejected the government's new $2.45 per

day minimum wage. The operators immediately terminated negotiations and proceeded

with unsuccessful efforts to organize a company union.8

Strike breakers @-om this so-called "Coast Loggers Union" were escorted by 6

provincial police, under mstruction from the Mmister of Labour, into BSW'S Great Central

Lake operation, chosen by the operators as the site of a final confrontation. The union

countered with a strikers' march from scattered points on'the east side of the Island across

to Port Alberni, and from there over hilly terrain to Great Central Lake. Once there, any

attempt to shut down the BSW "scab" operation was thwarted by the presence of provincial

police.. With the help of strikebreakers, the Department of Labour and the police, the

operators were able to break the backof the strike-just as vital log stockpiles at the export ' *

mills were running dangerously low.9

The 1934 loggers strike demonstrated cirtarn weaknesses i n the union's

programme, most importantly the failure to involve the mills to a sufficient extent really to

deliver an economic blow to the industry.1•‹ The failure to accept the wage proposal along

with the offer of committee recognition and no discrimination'may have been a tactical

error. In 1943, with the IWA still struggling for union recognition, one member of the /

oppositional white bloc still held it up as a classic mistake made by a doctriLaire communist

leadership without the true interests of the workersat heart. "Yes we were offered union

recognition in 1934 but we threw it out the window," John Ulinder wrote District President

Harold Pritchett. "Even if the wages offered at,that time were low, we could by now have

the employers eating out of our hands."ll Given the fervency of-the BCLA open shop

position, the numerical and financial weakness of the union, and the lack of anyJegislative

support f~'col1ective - bargaining or union recognition in 1934, such' an outcome would

have been highly improbable. The loose promises extracted from the operators in 1934 ' ,

were a long way from formal contractual consolidation of union rights.

Since 1920, in response to the threat from militant industrial unionism, the

Association operators had adhered unequivocally to the open shop priqiple. After the ,

demise of the first LWIU in the early 1920s, this principle had been relatively easy to

maintain, buttressed by sporadic wage increases, improved camp conditions, bonuses and'

othir management experiments to co-opt workers. By 1922, 1500 members of thk LWW,

including its best organizers, had been blacklisted and forced to find employment I.

elsewhere.12 The 1930s and the rise of the second LWIU only intensified the operators'

resistance to the'establishment of &litant, communist-led trade unionism amongst its

workforce. After successfully restructuring their export markets by 19i3-34, the logging x

and lumber companies and associations were not about to have their new-found prosperity

threatened by the collective action of workers they had grown used to managing

unchallenged. . .

' In the wake of the lq34 strike many of the LWIU's chief organizers were barred

permanently from working in the Association camps, a ~ ~ d camp committees were attacked. '

Led by Elk River Timber, many Association companies opened a renewed drive against the

union. Union membership dropped by one-third to approximately '2000, according to

optimistic accounts. The defeat of a strike at Alberni Pacific Lumber (APL) in October

1934 with assistance from strikebreakers and the police, put a damper on the union drive in

the Alberni Valley. Only at Cowichan Lake and in operations on the Queen Charlotte

Islands did loggers manage to retain union camp

To show his confidence in the preservation of the open shop, J.H. Bloedel took the

opportunity in the midst of the 1934 general strike to announce BSW's intention to

1

5- -23-

+ s I

.construct a new sawmill at Sornass.14 In ~ a & h 1935, the chaimtan of the Bowd of the I

,. w BCLA niet with the provincial Minister of Labour and the Chairman of the B o a of - .

Industriak-Relations regarding matters affecting the Loggers Agency. He rekiived '?*, J -

assurances that the government intended to resist all efforts of the LWIU to have private / . @ /

employment agencies closed and to oppose suggestions for new.legislation making it /

.= compalsory for the logging industry to negotiate with representatives of trade unions. In

May 1935 the Directors of the BCLA agreed to recommend to their member cornpa& /

suppi6rt & a proposed industrial relations council in British Columbia. In 1936, the

4ndustry enjoyed its best .% year since the onset of the depression. Exports to the United

Kingdom rose &matically during the f m t half of the decade as the British market became

the new mainstay of the British Columbia lumber export trade. By that year, the WUL - -

"red" or "dual" unions including the LWIU, had disbanded to join in the popular front

against fascism. That fact did not reassure the operators however, as they moved to block

the new organizational drive of the LWIU cum Lumber and Sawmill Workers Union

(LSWU) to bring British Columbia's loggers and millworkers into the American Federation

of Labour.I5

In March 1936 two loggers were fired from the Victoria Lumber and Manufacturing

Company (VLM) Camp 10 at Cowichan Lake for distributing copies of the B.C. Lu&

Worker. The crew immediately called a strike and set up a picket camp. Prior to the

LSWU drive at Cowichan, Camp 10 had been open to union organizers. The Lumber

Worker saw the change in policy as linked to VLM's recedt alignment with the Loggers

Agency operated by the BCLA: "It is apparent that pressure has been brought to bear on

the Camp 10 operators to bring them into line with the general policy followed by members

of the Association, that of suppressing organization at any cost" to prevent a link up with

the American central. Camp 8 at Cowichan Lake quickly went out in sympathy with Camp

10.16 In line with its popular front strategy, the LSWU (now an affiliate of the UBCJ)

adopted slightly differeht tactics and rhetoric than in previous strikes. It used the Trades

/'

and Labour Coigress ofCanada @'

(TLC) as a neotiating ve le and noted ,

in its bulletin that - while increased profits in the industry flowed of the country, "whenever ^-

the men. ..are able to force wages up at the are contributing

towards the prosperity of the entire capitalism were

muted, but the militant struggle and the open'

shop principle of the "boss loggers" re@ned central even within the riew political context. 4e

Support for the Lake Cowichan strikers came from Harold winch of the CCF, and

Percy Bengough, secretary of the Vancouver Trades and Labour Council, who demanded

that the Minister of Labour, George Pearson, hold a referendum on union representation. .

. He also attem~ted to intercede with John Humbird to bring a b u t negotiations, but the

general 'manager ;efused to meet with any committee other than of his own men.

Bengough subsSquently akangd such a meeting, but to no avail, while the Loggers

Agency made unsuccessful efforts to recruit strikebreakers for Camps 10 and 8. In the ~

midst of thp strike, in April, the LSWU established a District Council with representatives

from all sectors of the industry. Plans were discussed for a general strike. In view of the

operators' repudiation of the 1934 settlement with respect to recognition of camp

committees, the union this'time would settle for nothing less than union recognition as well

as increased wages.18

1

. I

C One structural obstacle to coast-wide organization of the industry at this point was

well demonscated in this 1936 strike-the existence of small, difficult-to-organize

operators who undermbed the efforts of Camp 10 and 8 workers by continuing to supply -7

logs to the VLM mill at Chhainus. he union was striving to equalize British Columbia I

wage rates with those in washington, but it still had much work to do to overcome the Q

uneven development of the industry in itzown backyard. Even so, to keep the strike from

spreading to his sawfill, Humbird, the grandson of the founder of VLM, laid off his f

Chemainus crew for two weeks and' threatened to fire any employee disseminating

information regaqling the strike.lg i

By May, the strike did spread, however, to the Industrial Timber Mills camp at . ,.

, Youbou, the Lake Logging Company at Cowichan Lake, and to the Menill Ring and i i

- Wilson Camp at Rock Bay. ~ o k e e n camps were affected to some degree by the end of I

the month. Employees of several shingle and saw mills also went out in support including

the big Capilano Shingle mill in North Vancouver. As the strike became more generalized,

the BCLA directors held a general di3cussion on strike strategy.20

Humbird stood f d y against any kind of settldment with the union. The sporadic

sympathy strikes, in the absence of a coherent district-wide organizational structure or the

wholehearted support of the workers involved, soon fost their steam. The Minister of

~abo;r may nqt have been totally off-base when hk claimed thqt the'struggle was really

between unionists and those workers not ready for unionism. When "the strikes involving

an estimated 2000 workers +ere called off at the end of May, Humbird kept Camp 10

closed until all those considered undesirables had left the district. The two men originally

discharged were certainly not reinstated. The union urged all' members who went out to

work in the small non-Association camps to do everything possible to get blacklisted men

placed in a job. At the same time the Loggers ~ssociation stepped up its efforts to resist the

union drive. At its November 1936 meeting, the Board of Directors approved a $3500

contribution toward the reorganization of the industrial Association pf British Columbia to

act as lobbyist and to conduct public relations work for the organized employer groups in

the province.21 t

In the wake of the strike, union organizational activity was in disarray. To s~ read

the organization deeper-into the various camps, efforts were made to stress the importance

of the locals, by'having men pay their dues directl; to th?e local rather than to the District.

But with men working twoweeks in one local, two weeks in another, then going to

Vancouver for a layover, the administration of such a system became terribly confusing. , -

At an October 1936 conference of the four logging locals, it was decided to hit& a mi% in

Vancouver to coordinate the transfer of members and dues from 6ne local to another, and Y a

generally help the local organizations keep their fdes straight2 \

The only two agreements with employers held by the woodworkers as of mid-1937

were in the logging sector of the industry with Lake Logging at Cowichan Lake, and J.R.

Morgan, on'the Queen Charlotte Islands. Some organizational gains were reported in the

.. Courtenay area, but the greatest activity occurred around Cowichan Lake. In both the

- Vancouver and New Westminster sawmill locals, little progress was reported. At 'i

Dominion Mills, for example, where several members lost their jobs-during .the

organizational drive, a fear of being blacklisted was blamed for keeping workers out of the

union. The District Executive wished to publicize such cases of discrimination? "but the 4 *

= .

members were afiaid that if we used their names tKey5would be blicklisted and ilnable to * , *,

- obtain employment in the industry," the officers informed the July District convention.23

The three shingle weavers' locals in Vancouver, North Vancouver and N&w - P

Westminster were decimated by participation in the 1936 strike. As the District Secretary . reported, "Where we had over 300 members, we today have no shingle weaversy- union in .- . .

the lower mainland. Even the executive members of the union were forced to g6 to work in

industry." The secretary of the New Westminster local suggested possibly amalgamating . I I

the three shingle locals.

In the main Association logging camps on Vancouver Island, outside of the Lake ', ;

' - '1 1

Cowichari area, things were not much different. Loggers around Port Albemi were "even ' . i 2

more afraid to come near the Union than the workers in other areas." In the C o ~ e n a y ' a . I i

area, the backbone of the BCLA, targeted by the union as its main point of concentration,

inadequate finances hindered organizational work all during the 1936-37 season. During

the summer of 1937, union organizers combined union work with electioneering, joining

kith the United Mine Workers in Cumberland to get Colin Cameron-elected to the Comox ,

constituency. During the election campaign, the union was able to open an office in f 5 :

Courtenay on the main street. Working side by side.with the CCF and Cameron paid off, I /

/

- * f . .

i

' - ..

particularly amongst loggers i i the cdrnox camps. As the District Secretary reported, "In .d

* I Q4@ . the past our Union in that area had been not only isolated W m the loggers in the cam& but +.

, d .

was isolated from the community.' . . I believe now that in co&enay we have a gol idpis '

on which to work.. .': Even in Lake cowicban;he ukon was far from entrenrhd. (- B \

the camps shut aown 6vgr Christmas, Lakk Logging decided to try to get &d of the union, $ r

* D @

bat was apparently persuaded by local and is mi leaders to take'a l a r g ~ rnajarity o f thg ',

workers back into camp. t- -

, . . , v : . . By mid-1937 this organizational insdability was compounded by j~risdi~tional

c~pfusion, as the new, industrially-bisd Federition of Woodwarkers threatened to take all. a

\ i 0

Pacific coast woodworkers into the CIO. In th4 midst of the CIO affiliation refetendurn, = '

; r b

8. &-

the British Coldmbia Distri'ct of.he ~ S W U was still anxious to main& l&br unity at the *

1 t '4.

local level. h e predicament was put succinctly by thp District Secretary: "Qur udon is in +, .P i

a very peculiar position-ad industrial union hitch& ub to a .~raf t Intematiqnal. We have i 6

r m

'p.

had great support from Local 452 of the Carpenters here but have'had po support from the . P

* . *

Lnternational bfice.. .'a " a

J , +. * 7 , . t + + ,

- By the suplmer of 1937, then, trade uniohism amongst ,~ritish-Columbia . .*

woodworkers was not much further dvmced than it had been at theincdption of the W L -

drive in 1929. Dbfeat in the poorly-conducted "generd" strike of '1934, and the abApt . , e I

. < • ÷ , < "

dissolution of the ~m in-1935, no doubt Geakined the ability of the LSWU tS:captuieX . - : ' . bR /

- . the industry for- the A h . Further, no pmq line could for long paper over-the inherent . ,/ II

contradictions in- the alliance of +the woddworkers with the conservative and domineeking . A /

U B C J . ~ ~ & d s i the organizational instabiljry of Y 935-37 it was difficultfor organizeisdm ' ' , . I . t

concentratdon the immediate'tasks of signing up members, fighting-grieuaj\ces*and . r * .

/ , r a .

combatting the anti-union tactics of the employer. By! even @ British Columbia, where the * ,

/ e *

1 -m I &.

ney'IWA would have a much clearer path m the absence of a serious jurisdictional fight $

, /

with the AFI; than was the case in the -American districts,26 the key to successful . /,

organization of the lumber industqfappeared to lie butside the organizational structures of B

the trade union movement.

The possibility of using the state as a vehicle through which to pursue elusive tradc

union bbje&ves was at the time being demonstrdted through dramatic changes taking place

in the American system of indushifl relationsYAwith the introduction of the National Labour

Relations Act (1935). Senator Robert Wggner's New Deal labour legislation was an \

attempt to stabilize labour's share of national income by enforcing, through state authority,

collective bargaining between employers and trade unions. Initially his efforts were

supported by both the older AFL unions and the newer CIO unions in the United States. = /

The conjuncture of the CIO challenge to AFL control of the organized labow movement, F. .w

with the actual passage and c o w enforcement of the so-called Wagner Act, quickly turned ,

AFL leaders agaimt New Deal collective bargaining policy.' CIO leaders-'equally as quickly 4 .

realized the Wagner Act's significance for fledgling industrial u n b s attempting to win ~4

recognitcon and first collective agre'ements, often in the face of jurisdictional rivalry frqm

older craft unions. In part, what pleased CIO and womed AFL leaders was the fact that the '

. t r? right to represent workers in collective bargaining would no longer be worked out in the

privacy of the trade union hall, but would bk a matter for the state to.deterrnine on the

principle of majority efecti0n.2~

* , \

In the middle of the national debatk on the Wagner Act, open rivalry broke out

-- between the AFL and CIO uni6ns-a rivalry which directly affected woodworkers in both

the United States and Canada. The growing strength of the industrially-based Sawmill and . 5

Tirnkr Workers Union (AFL) h the Pacific Northwest, and the Lumber and Sawmill

Workers Union in British Columbia, as demonstrated in the mass strikes of 1934236,

posed a serious threai t6 the UBCl niional leaders' attempts to keep the woodworkers .

under their control.28 A new Federation of Woodworkers was established in September

1936 as an industrial union within the UBCJ, demanding full voting rights and p~vileges. ..

Harold Pritchett, the recently elected President of the UBCJ's District Council in British

Columbia, was elected President of the Federation. At its founding convention the

Federation's incompatibility with Carpenter leadership became iminediately evident in a %

resolution to request the An ~xecubve ~ouncil ' to withdraw suspension of the CIO unions l

and support the organizational drive in mass production industries. As Vernon Jensen I

\ f

< --2

comments, "this action was.enough to damn the in the $ye's of the Carpenter .

officials" then leading a vigorous fight to stamp unionism. On the other

hand, industrially-minded lumberworkers, with a of rank-and-file control,

resented the domination of the Carpenters bureaucracy. At a convention in May 1937, a I

resolution passed requesting the Executive Board of the Woodworkers to work toward. ,

i G affiliation with the CIO and to call a special convention for that purpose. During the

summer of 1937 the Woodworkers CIO affiliation referendum passed by over 16000 to

5000. At the July convention in Tacoma, delegates supported Pritchett's motion to affiliate

with the CIO. On 20 July, the Woodworkers reconvened as the International

Woodworkers of America (CIO) to be headquartered in Portland, Oregon. In British

Columbia, local unions already established received new charters from the IWA. In

~anua& 1938, the new union held its fust.District Con~ention.~9 . , -

It was axiomatic to the communist leaders of the British Columbia Woodworkers at

this rime, that there be a close aff~liation with the industrial union movement in the United

States. Given the strength of the American labour mchement, 'which after 1935

experienced an enormous increase in growth, the leaders of the active industrial unions in 6r

British Columbia, .still much weaker by comparison, were "mesmerized" by the American ,

T

example. Being affiliated with an American union, the'y believed, was'an expression of

true proletarian internationalism, a deeply felt and solidly:held pan of their political

Along with this'comrnitment to-the Americm connection went an equally strongly P-

felt adherence to the legislative approach to the problems of organization, d l e c t i v e I

bargaining and union recognition. The example of the successes of the CIO unions, under

the Roosevelt New Deal programme, w p overwhelming. In August 1936 a debate was

held in Vancouver between visiting British Communist MP, Willie Gallacher and

Woodworker's leader and Party member Harold Pritchett, on the subject of industrial

relations. Speaking from within the British tradition which held that a collective agreement

was not something "known" to the law, Gallacher warned against workers putting their fate

in the hands of a bourgeois government. Pritchett and others felt that if their unions were

strong enough to get the government to give them the statutory protection they desired, they

would be strong enough to ensure the government lived up to its ~ o m m i t m e n t . ~ ~ Two

years later, in June 1938, as president of a new North American industrial union Pritchett J

gave a radio talk in British Columbia. In that pro nce, Pritchett e'xplained, as in the United '. r

States, woodworkers were confronted by a united employerinterested only in large profits L

I attainable moSt easily by maintenanck of the open shop. Eighty percent of the big lumber t

operations in British Columbia, he estimated, were owned and controlled by American

capital: .

The Weyerhausers, Bloedels and McCormicks are the identical employers with which our sister and brother members south of the international border have, through or anization, 'with the assistance of the New Deal ' government, estab f ished collective bargaining rights and entered into agreements'which as far as we are comcr~ieci, are lived up to, which provide a minimum wage scale of 62; cents per howi an eight-hour day, and a forty-hour week, with time and one-half for any time in excess of the forty hours. Therefore, in view of the fact that thk Canadian working people are faced with a government that has definitely proven they are not in sympathy with the problems of labour and have in conclusion continuously worked in the interests of the employer and said employer is international in scope, through a highly organized International Employers' Association, requires therefore that our union must out of necessity be international in character.32

Part of that international character was explicitly ,a determination to win legislation that

would recognize the rights of employees to organize into a trade union and rights of a trade

union to bargain collectively forthe employees who had selected it as their bargaining

agent.

In 1925, ,in order to clear up some con;titutional confusion regarding the

governance'of labclur relations in Canada, the British Columbia government had passed the

Industrial Disputes Investigation (British Columbia) Act, making any'industrial dispute

within the jurisdiction of the province subject to the federal ID1 Act. The chief f e a t u ~ o f

the federal Act was its attempt to outlaw strikes, lockouts and changes in working '

conditions prior to and during compulsory conciliation and investigation proceedings. The , % .

latter could be initiated by either party to a dispute, or, bjl the Minister of Labour. Boards

of cordiation and investigation were comp&ed of one representative from each side and a '

jointly chosen chair. These boards served two main functions, conciliation and

adjudication. The forr6er involved facilitating private negotiations betyeen the two9&ies;

the latter took the form of formal public hearings-presentation of briefs, followed by

deliberations and a decision, either unanimous or majority. In the case of adjudication,

reports of the majority and minority non-binding recommendations were transmitted to the

Minister, and then, from him to the parties and the public at-large. Only after this process

was complete was.a strike or lockout legal, an innovation that particularly distinguished-the -

Canadian system. This legis\ation directly involved the state in the resolution of industrial ,

disputes, largely to the &sadvantage of workers. It was not in any way intended to protect

the rights of workers or trade unions to organize, bargain and engage in industrial action.')

With the rise of the CIO unions in Canada, organized employer and state hostility to

labour reached a peak unmatched since 1919. In the newly-organizing manufacturing and

resource indusmes in Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia and British Columbia in particular,' I

C

, employers dug in to resist the incursion of militant, often communist-led trade unions from

south of the border. Indusmal unionism posed a threat not only to the lumber barons and

mining magnates, but also to the established craft union; which had developed their

organizational strength within the, context of craft exclusivity and self-administration of

jurisdictional disputes. Legislation that gave the state the power to define union

jurisdictions opened up the possibility that carefully-nurtured craft lines could be wiped out

in a wave of industry-wide organi~at ion .~~ Wishing to avoid the split that had occwed in

its American parent organization, the TLC, during 1937, resisted pressure from the AFL to

expel the still numerically weak CIO-affiliated unions.35 Probably in large part to maintain

a degree of unity, the Congress succumbed to pressure from the CIO unions and adopted a

variant of the Wagner Act for presentation to provincial governments as t -

legislation.36

- In British Columbia, the IWA, at its January 1937 District Conference in Nanaimo, \ .

,14* <,-

,- passed a resolution demanding the right of collective bargaining and the abolition of the

I blacklist system, and lobbied the Vancouver and Victoria Trades and Labour Councils to its

support.37 Industrial unions in British Columbia also began *ressuring for the

reestablishment of the British Columbia Federation of Labour, disbanded since 1920. In

the fall of 1937 the Victoria Trades and Labour Counc,il called a province-wide conference

of unions in conjunction with the legislative session, to lobby for the passage of new

labo~r , l e~ i s la t ion .~~ The Victoria Conference eridorsed a CCF draft bill which addressed

some of the w&nesses of the original "model bill" by explicitly including the rights of

trade unions to organize and bargain collectively. Vancouver East CCF member Harold

Winch, who was involved in the Conference, tried unsuccessfully to get this bill placed on

the order paper of the House. Colin Cameron, CCF member for Comox, introduced a I'

separate bill which would have given organizers the, right to enter logging operations.39

By the time of the fall legislative session, however, much of the immediate political

pressure from the left was off Premier Pattullo's Liberal government. As a result of the

June election, the CCF, experiencing the consequences of recent internal disruptions, had

lost its status as the official opposition to the conservative^.^^ The new draft legislation

brought to the floor of the House in December, the industrial Conciliation and Arbitration

Act, was largely a provincial rewrite of the ID1 Act, with a $cry half-hearted nod to

I

' employees' fights to organize and bargain collectively. The conciliation and adjudication

functions were broken into two separate stages: compulsory conciliation by a conciliation

commissioner, followed, if unsuccessful, by the appointment of a board of arbitration.

The ID1 Act restrictions on the right to strike were maintahed, and strengthened somewhat

by a provision requiring a secret ballot vote of employees on a board recommendation,

supervised at the discretion of the Minister, followed by a further 14 day "cooling-off

period," before a strike could be legally conducted. As a concession to labour, a 14 day

time limit was placed on the appointment of the commissioner, but no time limit was placed

on the deliberations of the b a d 4 1

The main exception taken to the bill by the comparatively conservative Vancouver

Tracks and Labour Council was to the compulsory conciliation and arbitration sections.42

No criticism was levelled at weaknesses in the ICA Act with respect to state recognition of 2

trade union, rights-something that would have aided the organizational efforts of the

struggling industrial unions. And there was much to criticize from the latter's perspective.

The definition of "organization" did include "6ade unions" but onlias supplementary to the

more genf:ral category of "organiz8tion or association of employees formed for the purpose

of regulating relations between employers and employees." That included the company

unions specifically outlawed by the Wagner Act. Section 7(2) of the British Columbia bill

provided that organizations were entitled to enter into an agreement with an employer

requiring all employees to be members of a specified organization of employees, thus, in ",

\ theory, permitting a union shop agreement. Section 4 did recognize the right of employees

to organize for any lawful purpose, and employers refusing to bargain would be liable to a

fine of $500. Trade union officials not necessarily employed in an operation could be

elected as bargaining representatives. But since trade unions as such were not explicitly

recognized as legal bargaining agents, employers were not compelled to bargain or enter

into agreements with trade unions, even in cases where the majority of workps were

already members. Nothing in the Act, in fact, compelled employers to enter into an

\ agreement of any kind. Without a union agreement there was very little chance of unions . \ \

winning any form of security, so essential to organizing in an industry like logging, \ characterized by mass transiency.

. The ICA Act of 1937 insured that in future recognition of a trade union as

bargaining agent would be a matter for negoti'ation, arbitration and possibly job action,

rather than, as under the Wagner Act, a matter determined by statute and government

agencies prior to negotiation proceedings. The Act's failure to recognize trade unions as

legitimate bargaining agents threw into question the effectiveness of its antidiscrimination

clause as well. Section 7(1) provided a $500 fine for the offence of seeking to compel a

person to join or refrain from joining any organization by threat of loss of employment or

actual loss of employment. The question remained, would the government of British

Columbia ever enforce a provision that wouici enhance thc efforts of a union to become an- ~

established indmtrial relations entity?43 J

The severe weaknesses of the ICA Act were very rapidly brought to public attention

by events at two Port Alberni mills. Early in 1938, the IWA stepped up its efforts to

organize mill employees in the mc ia l Port Alberni area. The two mills in question were

owned by two of the biggest companies in the industry. Alberni Pacific Lumber Company

mill and its remaining timber supply had been purchased in 1936 by H;R. MacMillan \

Expon for $1.7 million. ~ a c k l l a n then beat out the Bloedel interests in securing John D. - *

Rockefeller Jr.'s timber holdings in the Ash valley for $2.6 million to secure a 20 year

operating supply for the mill. A $500,000 logging railroad was set up to service the Ash- '

Valley timber. The other mill in question was owned by one of MacMillan's chief rivals,

Bloedel, Stewart and Welch. In 1935, BSW had bought all'outstanding shares in the -\

previously jointly-owned Great Central Sawmill, and had completed construction of its

medium-sized Somass mill. 9 fri addition it awned and operated the Red Band Shingle mill

in Burnaby, as well as twohifferent logging operations at Menzies Bay a d Franklin River

on the Island. It held timber estimated at over 2.5 billion feet. Both these companies then,

( C were in the process of major expansion and consolidati& based largely on the export trade .

opened up since 1932. Heavily involved in large capital expenditures; and with BSW 3

&=

considering a pulp mill at Port Alberni, these "timber barons" were not ab.out to I

countenance the organization of their workers by a' militant industrial union;44 75 men, all

members of IWA local 1-85, were fired without apparent cause from the two mills on 4 5

June 1938. That same evening, bqgaining committees for each mill were nominated and 9

petitions circulated for their election. A meeting of employees on 5 June endorsed the a

committees. When the companies refused to recognize the elected committees, or to -

negotiate rehiring of the fired employees before any replacements were hired, a union

delegation interviewed labour Minister Pearson in Victoria and sought the appoinbnent of a

conciliation commissioner. The Minister suggested the delegation would have to sign up

51 percent of the employees involved in the dispute before a commissioner would be

appointed. Meanwhile the company proceeded to circulate a counter-petition which,

according to an affidavit sworn out by the APL mill superintendent, asked the men to have

nothing to do with a CIO-affiliated union. When the APL employees took their own ,

petition for a commissioner back to Pearson on 17 June with an alleged 60 percent

majority, the Minister refused to recognize of any dispute in light of the

existence of two conflicting petitions. The commissioner was

therefore refused. Subsequently, Pearson directed the employees to elect negotiating . ,

committees by secret 6aii0t at meetings attended by a majority ofkmployees. If the

ernploy& still refused to bargain, a conciliator would then be granted."

The Minister was quite unprepared, if not unwilling, to administer the ICA Act.

Regulations as to how to comply with its provisions had not been established, and indeed

1 would not be for some time (see chapter three below). e.

series of meetings, petitions and trips to Victoria in an

of a conciliation commissioner, 4

The union was forced into a lengthy

effort to secure ~ n l y the appointment

The events at Port Alberni demonstrate well the new direction in which District One

was headed. In 1936, the firing of two loggers for union activity at Cowichan Lake had -

touched off a strike that eventually involved 2000 loggers and mill workers throughout

Vancouver Island and the Lower Mainland. In 1938, there was no stfike at Port Alberni

over the firing of 75 emplqyees, in part because the IWA's efforts were absorbed in a

concerted test of the new ICA Act at Blubber Bay. More generally, though, the quest for

. recognition and legibmation by the state had already begun to distraot union officials. The

ICA Act, if far short of the dreamed-of Canadian Wagner Act, was an opening through

which the union hoped eventually to find a legislative solution to its organizational

. problems. The Blubber Bay episode serves to reinforce this conclusion. The union's -

decision to expend so much of its energy at this one small operation can only be understood

in terms of a struggle with the state itself in order to secure the kind of legislation that

would facilitate the much larger organizational task before it. The fruit of that struggle, the

December 1938 amendment to the ICA Act would make a mockery of the union's effort.

The Pacific Lime Company, in production at Blubber Bay on Texada Island for 30

years, had as its main operation the quarrying and export of lime and subsidiary products.

It also ran a small lumber mill at the site with a daily capacity of 40,000 feet. Some of its

employees were also involved in longshore work at the loading dock. Through an

agreement with the Longshore and Mine Mill unions, the IWA had been given jurisdiction I

over the entire operation which employed approximately 100 Chinese and 25 white

workers. Pacific Lime was controlled by a New York firm, Niagara Alkali Company.

E.T. Kingsley of New York was a minor shareholder as well as owner of Kingsley

Navigation Company in British Columbia. Kingsley had joined the Shipping Federation at

the outset of the 1935 longshoremen's strike, locked out his AFL employees and

established a company u n i d r the Woodworkers, this link with the Shipping

Federation gave the struggle at Blubber Bay added importance. In fact, the union viewed *- r

the ,''blacklistingW Federation; rather thim the "boss Loggers Association" as its main '

On 23 July 1937, 133 employees had struck for a wage increase and recognition of

the Lumber a d Sawmill Workers' Union. On 8 September an agreement was &ached

providing for recognition of an elected shop committee as bargaining representative, for no

discrimination against a striking employees, and for a minimal wage increase. The company 0

also agreed, as a matter of form, to continue its traditionalpractice of distributing longshore

,and .maintenance work amongst available employees during the slack winter months.

When normal lime quarry operations resumed in the spring, regular practice had been that

employees would return to their usual jobs.47

Meanwhile, however, a change of management dictated a new hard-line policy at - Blubber ~ a y . By January 1938, Pacific Lime members of the LSWU had been transferred

to the IWA, and in ~ G c h this small crew was designated a separate local, 1-163. On 21 " -

January, the company, in an attempt to undermine the union, called a meeting of employees

to discuss the status of the existing employee committee, four members of whom were

temporarily unemployed. The men, including the Chinese, remained solid. The

company's strategy was to try to form acompany union which would repudiate the rehiring a

agreement of 1937. When the company refused to allow three laid-off committee members

to attend a subsequent meeting called on company time, and attempted to have its own

committee ratified, 9 2 employees signed a petition for a conciliation commissioner.

Blubber Bay thus became the first intervention by the Department of Labour into a labour

dispute under the ICA Act. Commissioner McGeough held an'election on 12 February in

-which the orignal committee was upheld 87 to 30. He then advised the company toglive up

to the 1937 agreement. Only three days later the compariy informed the employee

committee that its policy would be to hire all men needed for the reopening of the plant

from Vancouver. A quickly assembled employees meeting decided, despite calls from the

-38- 2

floor for an immediate walk out,'to apply for f h e r conciliation. Union officials alleged - h

six cases of discrimination due to union activity.*, e m

+* At the end of February McGeugh retk& to Blubber Bay. He found that three of U

the men had been laid off prior to 10 December 1937 and were thus not c ~ v e ~ - ~ ~ the ICA

Act. The compahy agreed to rotate the employment of the other three men, but soon after C

f e

fired a union engineer and refused to open negotiations with the elected union committee.

These actions provoked 'a second strike 05 6 March, and yet another intervention by d -

McGeough. He arranged a return to work on 57 March based on the company's 8.

J . C

.undertaking to enter negotiations on a union proposal for union &cognition, union shop, - Y

' reemployment of all mer on payroll on 23 July 1937 (date of the first strike), a base rate - r w 1,-

and overtime provisions, equitable distribution of boat-loading work, and rotation of white b -

B and oriental employees on an equal baiis. On 21 arch, t s 'union informed the Minister

' Pearson that thq company was deliberatily the men IS by hiring from other points

while local men were without woik: A corhmissioner was requested for the third time and \ t v 3,

appointed on 28 ~ a r c h . ~ 9 $he union q infpned r McGaough that the company had rejected

all.of the key demands, and bad hr6gatM a humber oi long-standing work.custornq. The :- , ?.

.?s

Commissioner reported on the complete lack of agreement and recommended referral of the

dspute to a board of arbitration.50 I 2 j

. ,

During the short time between the granting of the arbitration board and the initiation r

of hearings, Pacific Lime added to the 23 union men alreaqy denied r~mployment~by firing 7 Y .

nine more with company service ranging from four"yars to 29 years. Efforts were made

by Provincial Police Sergeant T.D. ~ u t h e ~ l a n d and Constable J. Sweeney during the fust

put of April to recruit local residents on relief to fill the positions of the frred rnen.5' A

three day strike followed this latest mass firing which was too blatant even for Pearson to

ignore. Upon receiving demands for reinstatement from the IWA District Council and

Harold Winch of the CCF, Pearson threatened the company with legal proceedings unless

the nine men were reemployed. After compliance by Pacific Lime, and with a promise

' from the company twcontinue negotiations, the men returned to work. A board of

L

arbitration consisting of Chaimian Judge Charles McIntosh, local union m& Frank Leigh, t

and R.D. ~illi&-ex-president of the Shipping Federation, heard representations in early -,.:+ i h

May. The union case w& handled largely by Win~h .~Z -

I.

The board dealt with nine of the most contentious clauses. Quite remarkably: its -

un&imous decision i ored the previous committee election supervised by McGeough. a

Not only didit refuse union recognition, but recommended th the negotiatjng committee * +

*A,* LL

be composed of two union employees, one n6n-union employee together with the general

manager and plant superintendent. A general grievance committee was to have union and

non-union mernber~.5~ Pearson told Winch that the committee representation clauses

would only remain if both sides agreed, otherwise section 5 of the Act would automatically

apply. The Minister then assigned Judge McIntosh to the task of straightening out the mess . ,

with a legal union strike deadline of 2 June pending. The Judge secured company r

agreement to recognize the existing elected committee, and, in principle to reemploy all men

on payroll as of 23 July 1937. The company refused, however, to give any undertaking as L_

to a reasonable time limit for reinstatement, pleading loyalty to its""scab" employees. In

- essente, the company's position and intention had not altered since the beginning of the

dispute. Faced with such inh-ansigence, the union had6no choice but to carry through with

its strike threat.54

Once the strike had begun, plant superintendent Oswald Peele arranged with

Sergeant Sutherland for the remitrnent of strikebreakers. Sutherland attempted to solicit

the help of the local relief investigator for Powell River district, but this plan was thwarted

by intervention from Victoria. Sutherland nevertheless went on his own. The main job of <'

recruiting Chinese ~trikebreakers~was undertaken in Vancouver by one Queue Yip, also

casuahy employed as a government interpreter. By midJuly the union estimated over 50

strikebreakers had been imported to Blubber Bay. It set up kpicket line at the dock,

bolstered by IWA members from Vancouver, and Pulp and Sulphite workers frq;li Powell

River, in order to deter "scabs" arri$ng by boat.

- . .

0

The Provincial Police, in addit' /'

herding "scabs,?' assisted company officials with the forcible eviction of strikers from th&

The union retaliated by securing from the ~ a r i t i m e Federation of the Pacific

convention a threat to place all -Pacific Lime cargo on the unfair listwnless the company.

respbnded to union demands. It also .dated court action against& company bn behalf of k; n

26 resident workers (all Chinese) for u layful eviciion and assault. The situation was ": L

ready-made for violent confrontation, w d oh 21 July and 17 September, upon thearrival of e18

boatsf from Vancouver, strik&rs and theit wive clashed with police aid& by strikebreakers' - Y and company officials. 'After the first encounter, severdstrikers were given fines for

assault and obstruction, and in one case a 30 day prison sentence. After the27 September

melee, the IWA obtained affidavits from passengers 'on board the docking vessel testifying

that ;he confrontation had been set up in advance by the police.56 The union, supported by \\

the eye witness account of Colin Cameron, alleged that in a well-rehearsed action the

Provincial Police had charged the picket l h e with gas and clubs, "driving the s w r s into a , 'I, 9

volley of stodes and clubs between two rows of scabs lined up on either side'of the road to

ambush them." police clubbed any who turned to escape. One union man, Bob Gardner,

was arrested the next day and in the course of being jailed had four ribs broken by-

Provincial Police Constable Williamson. Charged by the unic@o a noteworthy coun - action, Williamson eventually received a' six month sentence for assaulting Gardner. All

other charges against strikebreakers and police were dismissed for lack of evidence while

15 union picketers, including Gardner, received three to four month prison sentences. The

central figure in the IWA's test of "bourgeois" justice never properly remvered from his

injuries, became ill in prison, and died shortly after in N a n a i m ~ . ~ ~

On 17 September, the day of the second outbr of violence on the -Blubber Bay .

duck, George Pearson issued a statement blaming- the union for his department's fiiilure to -

settle the dispute. He asserted that, "so far as this department is concerned everything

/ '

possible has been done to deal with this dispute in a manner that would be helpful to the I

d'

employees, but their rejection of the unanimous award exhausted our powers." Pearson :. b

also Bnnounced he had received a reqiest fi-orq the present company employees to elect a P

new committee since the old one no longer properly represented them. He noted that h i r*

had "had to take the position that I cannot agree to this until I am satisfied that the dispute . --. *

had in some way been satisfaqoPily disposed of."58 The Rovincial Police quickly took

care of that obstacle using old'fahioned methods of force and intimidation in place of the

industrial relations machinery that had proven inadequate.

The union, too, realizing that the ICA Act was a dead letter for the moment, sent a PI

delegation consisting of Reverend H.P. Davidson, Grant McNeil, Harold Winch and John

Stanton to see Attorney General Gordon Wismer with a sheaf of affidavits charging the 2

Provincial ~olice'with &susing their authority by practising intimidation against strikers

and their families. Wismer ordered an immediate investigatim jnto the charges. Herwas

quickly over1ruled by Premier P lm Caineron, had been C

pressured by Me1 Bryan, Liberal , and Sergeant Sutkerland, both of whom would

have been exposed as using their pos s

The 17 September picker line co legal battle appeared to

weaken the resolve of the strikers, who, at any rate, wereliving a hand to mout existence. I -Pearson announced, in early October, that negotiations would resume and predicted a quick

end to the strike. The most the company would offer was reiristatement of 20 from a list ef 4

106 strikers presented by the union. With the strike apparently lost, attention was turned to

the new session of the legislature and attempts to confront the government with the . .. consequences of its inadequate labour legi~lation.~~ '

The events at Blubber Bay clearly demonstrated the cbmplete emptiness of the ICA '

Act with respect to employer discrimination against union members, and recognition of >

trade unions as bargaining agents. Also exposed was the inadequate and unfair +conciliation &' ?

and arbitration machinery set up by the Department of Labour under the Act. In the midst - .-

I ' -42- I

2

i . of the dispute, the W A began ~lamouring once again for a proper British Coiqmbia

equivalent of the w a g n u Act. Iktchett, in a speech at the Blubber Bay picket camb in 1 I

i I

October, struck his familiar themd linking the IWA's part in the trade union struggle against / I . I /

"the internatiohal exploitation and&ggression of big business" to "an intensified campaign, i

1 1 both politically and organizat i~npl~, to change the British Columbia Labour Bill No. 94

I

into a democratic measure such as the Wagner Act.. ."61 To that end, the IWA endorsed the -

. * renewed campaign of the Vancoukr Trades and Labour Council to have ICA Act amended.

A 'council cornmitteg, after s8udying the Act, and cohsulting with the prdvincial . \ ,

government, brought forward suggested changes explicitly placing trade unions! at the \

centre of the definition of "organization" and -at the centre of the anti-intimidation, -1

discrimination and collective bargaining section's of the Act. As a direct response to the

Blubber Bay arbitration board decision, the committee recommended that no employer.

'representative should sit on any union or employee association grievance or bargaining

committee. The conciliation sections of the Act would be struck out, providing for I

immediate*rekr;a: of any dispute directly to a bokd. With the fall legislature session just

underw'ay, the Lumber Worker warned that "the action from parliamentarians on the

Blubber Bay'isSue will show who are in favourof a new deal and on the other hand, who

are the stooges of big business."62 I

- As the session progressed, it became apparent that the minister was not inclined to .

undertake any wholesale~revisiqn. ~ f t & meeting with a TLC delegkion, headed by Percy

Bengough and in' Showler, the government annpuncedits intention barnend section 5

only, so that officials of a union which had organized a majority.of the employees in an +

operation would automatically become bargaining agents.63

Employer reaction was swift. A group, including logging, mining and

manufacturing concerns headed by Wendell F b s , K.C.,kged the government not to

open the Act for amendment at all, and if that proved impossible, to grant recognhion only 6

to unions a!ready organized, and not to any organized subsequently. Pearson accepted this I I

suggestion' as a "temporary compromise," full consultation with b&h sides

towards a satisfactory rewrite of the clause time. The Minister defended his ' .?

inaction, indicating 'his personal leave the Act intact. The ICA Act,

1 he excused, though it had not had not interfered with 1 *nibns either. One of the difficulty in writing into

1 been installed. the fault of the'workers, he accused, who, on unsound

uniorf advice, board award, thus leaving his Department powerless - i

to act. Had and accepted the award, Pearson assured the

any,law a clause preventing Blubber Bay, Pearson claimed, was

brought the company around to a more reasonable p o ~ $ i o n . ~

of the AFL Convention in November 1938 to order the 4

Trades and Labour Congress to expel all CIO affiliates (an action promptly carried out in

.

January 1939) it is not surprising that both the Vancouver Council and the provincial

thec'only serious blot" on relations record since the Act had

execuhve of thk Congress expbssed satisfaction with the government's surrender to

. . organized capital's vocal concerns. "We did not get all we asked ," said Bengough, "but

we won part of our request."65 The impending split in the Canadian lab& mbvernent had

made it considerably'easier for Pearson, to work out his compromise position. What

pleased some craft union leaders and mollified the industrialists, was the fact that the

amended Act did nothing to improve the opportunities of the new1 jl organizing industrial

unions to get established in the province. There would still be no legal onus on an , =

employer to negotiate with a trade union as bargaining agent, or to sign a union agretrnent. 4 3

even in cases where an operation was one hundred percent organized, if the union had not

been elected prior to 7 December 1938. The reign of the blacklist and the open shop in the t i -

woods would continue unabated. ~o redve r , t h i ~ c t implicitly recognized i n law the - .)

distinction between "good" and "bad" unions, thus reinforcing- what would become the 3

major argument of employers against recognitioq of- the IWA and other communist-led

" unions during the war. If Blubber Bay had demonstrated to labour the obvious inadequacy

of the law, it had also served to reinforce in the minds of British Columtiia's large

. industrial employers their intense reluctance to deal with fighting unions, such as the 6 . '

$oodworkers, in any organized industrial relations system. t

For the moment as far as legislative action was concerned, the IWA was stymied at

, the level. ,me British Columbia District's "Blacklist Committee," headed by

John Stanton, turned its attention toward Ottawa, and begzn collecting affidavits and other

data in support gf fhe efforts of CCF members of the federal House, McNeil and J.S.

, Woodsworth, to have pro-labour amendments written into the criminal code. The result

was Section 502A of the Criminal Code (1939), making it an indictable offence to use

membership in a union as the sole reason for dismissal, refusal to employ or intimidation.

The section's wording, however, and the difficulty in roving such instances, made P conviction "virtually irnp~ssible."~~

By the end ofthe dec,ade the shape of industrial relations in the woodworking i

industryof British Colum la wasremarkably similar to its condition in 1931. As the

directors of the BCLA r ported at the end of 1940, despite "outside interference" of rb "C.I.O. agitators" in th ee of their camps, another year had ended with "our members I running their own b siness without union regulation or union permi~sion.'~ C.D.

7 P Anderson. Chairmanbf the Board went on: ,

,-'

/

We have fdr labour legislation both Provincial and Federal. This is one of fhe reasons we are able to run our own business. It is up to y~ to see that our labour laws remain fair. We can rest assured that elements interested in collecting Union Dues will never slacken their efforts.. ..if we wish ta continue to enjoy the benefits of the "open shop" we must keep in mind, all the time, that eternal vigilance is the price. And this applies not only to the woods by to the legislative halls as ~ e l . 1 . ~ ~

<

B

The events of the 1930s had cast the industrial relations struggle in British

Columbia within an institutional and legislative framework. That the IWA had chosen to

-- tight for recognition and legitimacy within the institutions of the state did not imply it was '4;

quiescent, conservative or legalist in its approach. Rather, the District leaders saw this

strategy as the most effective pathpto organizing a very difficult industry and pursuing the

class struggle in the woods. Just as with the logging operators, the union recognized that

their struggle against the open shop had to be waged both in the woods and in 'the

legislative halls. The historical conjuncture of the 1930s, during which industrial relations

in N o n h America were becoming established as part of the institutionalized political

system, provided the British Columbia District of the IWA with i-ts first opportunities to

advance the struggle on the parliamentary front. The labour market and general economic

conditions of the war years would provide the first real breakthrough for trade union

organizing in the British Columbia woods, and would open up the possibility for the labour.

movement in general to move beyond the "phoney" labour statutes of the later 1930s. It is

to this two-pronged struggle of the war years that we will turn our attention in the

following three chapters.

The War Y a p : Labour Market. Capital Formation. and 1 Jnion Strategy

The open shop and blacklist strategy of the Association operators worked for them

during the lean years of the Depression. A relative labob surplus meant low wages, the

ability to pick and choose amongst even skilled loggers, ensuring that few inroads were

made by union organizers. The fact that these operators, as it was often said, always had

three crews at any given time, one coming, one going and one working, was not a big

problem, so long as a steady supply of labour was maintained. The BCLA's Loggers

Agency in Vancouver dispatched at least three-quarters of all loggers to the Queen 2

Charlotte, Vancouver Island and mainland camps, and maintained a clbsed shop as far as

union activists were concerned. The loggers' world, centered in Vancouver, included the

entire coastal region: Even though coastal logging operations remained open through most .

of the year a fluctuating workforce made union organizing extremely difficult, yet did not

lower production. If anything, it permitted the operatop to force higher rates of production

through piece work and speed-up.' , .

By 1941 there was full employment in Canada and by 1942, in most industries

including the lumber industry, severe labour shortage^.^ This labour market was a

function of both an absolute decrease in available employees due to enlistment, as well as

an increase i n production, especially intense during 1940-41. The domestic wartime

infrastructure of airplane hangars, army barracks and a myriad of other facilities and

supplies crpated an unprecedented demand for coastal timber. Canada's building

programme, incluchng the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan, required the

construction of 9000 wooden buildings during 1940-41. In 1940, British Columbia 7

provided 25 percent of Canadian government timber procurements, the highest of any

province. By 1941, Canadian lumber production reached an all-time high, but fell off

considerably in 1942 due to shortages of labour.3 Ironically, this labour market situation at -

-=5 first exacerbated the problem of labour fluctuation. With jobs aplenty, men could pick and . choose, moving from one camp to the next in search of better "grub," cleaner beds and

easier foremen. -

New employment opportunities also lured experienced loggers to the booming

shipyards of Vancouver and to wartime construction work. As well, the opening up of

spruce logging for airplane timber in the Queen Charlottes drained skilled labour away From

6: lower coastal and Island camps, a situation noted by the Loggers Agency as early as June

1940. In November 1940, the secretary of the BCLA met with the federkl Depu'ty Minister

of L a b u r to discuss possible government action to regulate wage increases and control the

movement of labour from one plant to another. In March 1941, Black reported to the

on a shortage of riggers and loaders as men grew increasingly restless and

following spring, the Loggers Agency reported 377 men on order, of whom

and 139 fallers and buckers. Black was busy scouring the prairies for

remits, with authorization from National Selective Service (NSS). The Agency worked

closely with NSS in an effort to establish standard wages across the industry and bring

experienced men from other regions or other industries to fill critical shortages .in the

During April 1942, R.G. Clements of the Federal Department of Labour *.

-C

investigated the problem of British Columbia loggers seeking.employ~ent in other war

industries. After visiting various ship;ards and indus&s *. and interviewing hotel 2'

managers, personnel managers and employment agency operators, he concluded that

anywhere between 500 and 1006 loggers were "floating" around Vancouver seeking

employment in other war industries, but mainly in the shipyards. Cited as reasons were the

desire to be near pfamilies, to find easier work and have access to "the usual city

attractions." In particular, rigging men and engineers were most likely to secure and do

well at shipyard jobs. By securing such employment, a logger could also avoid the extra

costs of clothes, equipment, and transportatiom Family men with city households would

not have the ekra charges of bed and board from home.%

The following month, NSS representative, cS. Henley met with representatives o r

the major industrial associations, including the BCLA. The Loggers Associ&on put

forward a series of recommendations calling for classification of fndustries"i'n o r d e ~ of I

priority for labour, registration of all manpower, freezing me n particular industries ;.

(particular operations if possible), punishment for idleness thr h the estab1ishment"of D

labour battalions, and wage ceilings in the logging indust ased on geographical * .

division^.^

By September it appeared the federal war bureaucracy was beginning to meet some

of the industry's needs. That month, C.D. Howe, hinister of Munitions and Supply,

officially declared log and lumber productionKb essential war industry. Elliott Little,

Director of NSS, announced plans, in conjunction with industry leaders, to provide much

needed manpower, especially in the year-around Scific coast industry. The De&mmentif

Labour established an inventory of employable persons to aid in the transfer,of workeh to

a region of acute shortage. A new set ~f NSS regulations under cabinet order $C 7595 . .la

provided a seven-day cooling-off period for any -iay-off or notice of termination by the '

employee. This measure was designed to reduce the opportunity for employees to "shop G C

around" for work at higher pay, and to end enticement by employers. It would also 9

provide NSS officers with Hn opportunity to intervene and prpent a transfer. Together

9 with the curtailment of less essential plants and a provision for assigning and freezing

unemployed men to particular jobs, these regulations were in part intended to help fisd the

estimated 110,000 workers needed by the end of 1942 to meet Canada's wartime lumber

By the end of October 1942, the editors of Bridsh Columbia Lumberman, an

industry trade journal, were growing impatient with the failure of the NSS to invoke all its

special powers to provide men. The only indication of action had k e n a one-third wage ,

bonus to attract loggers to the remote Queen Charlotte spruce camps.8 In summing up the

situation at the end of 1942, G.W. O'Brien. Chairman of the Board of the BCLA, reported ' *

that the manpower situation had become critical. Men were being lost to the armed forces,

defence construction, ;unition factories, shipyards and to a successful fishing season. As

well, the wavering manpower policy of the government, rumours of job freezing, a desire

to escape income taxes, and a wide variation in wage rates across the industry had kept

hundreds of men on

efforts, to stabilize

A * the move. The Association itself had managed, through its own

wages ,somewhat, with'the establishment of ceilings for each

employment category in the three major areas of the coast forest dtstrict, east and west, P "

~ a k o u v e r Island and the mainland. Nevertheless, the drah of manbower to more

I attractive city-based employment cont in~ed.~ @ '4

In February 1943, in a memo to the Timber ,Coatroller, the BCLA claimed it neeaed . j.5

4 t

.3500 'hen by April, including up to 1000 fallers. ~he'Association doubted that eithei the .

3 9

industry or the government would approve wages sufficient1 y high to attract men back. It. * P % * *8

suggested a plan to locate workers with-woods experience in other industries, particularly . ' *.

in the shipyards.'o C.D. Howe agreed that ~ r i t i s h Columbia shipyards weredoverstaffed 3 . B i

while the situation:in the logging camps was acute. He suggestrid to Minister of Labopr I

Humphrey itche ell a plan of shifting men out of shipbuilding back to wbdwork." .

Mmhell's,deputy, A. ~ a c ~ a m a r i "beli6ve.d the BCLA figures were in~ated and oppo&d a . c

darnagmg reduction of labour in the shipyards.i2 Mitchell alsdrepbitd back to ~ b w e on t 1

the opposition of Austin Taylor and H.R. MacMillan, the dollar-a-year men in charge pf 7 .

shipping, td a traqsfer of men into logging. MacMillan in particular took'the position that

, ships were more important than lumber." Official resistance, combined with tbe J

- t

reluctance of shipyard employees to move, and complaints from the ~oiler&akers Union

resulted in a grand total of 25 fallers and buckers from theahigyards being brdered to go c 1 J

: n .

logging in-May.14 Black informed the BCLA he knew of 6 ~ l y one or two such mgn who s .

actu$ly returned to camps.l5 Outside theshipbuilding sector, the situation wuh r e s p t to

loggers was little different. From a list of approximately 1700 ex-loggers provided by the

Loggers Agency, the Unemployment Insurance Commission was able to find and interview

633. Of these 15 percent were already in camps, another 15 percent were intending to go

or agreed to go, while 290 or 46 percent refused and had their present work permits +?

revoked. A --

<

From the point of view of the industrqr, then, the evidence suggests that wage and

price regulation, competition from more attractive wartime employment, and the failure of

- federal government agencies and departments to give sufficient priority to log and lumber

production created a situation of acute labour shortage and fluctuating crews. NSS

regulations aimed at controlling job movement made little impact in the logging camps.

Loggers continued to look for greener pastures. The wartime labour market presented real

problems to lumbermen anxious to capitalize on the unprecedented demand f k t b e i r

products.

The task of the union was to harness a transient horkforce and stabilize its

membership and organizational structure, at least in several of the key operations, as a step 1

towards organizing the entire coast industry prior to war's end and a possible return' to

depressed conditions. .The forces of the undersupplied but fluctuating labour market

worked both for and against the union in this regard. Certain structural changes that had

been occurring in the lumber industry during the 1930s, and which accelerated during the

early years of the war, worked more emphatically in the union's favour andwould help in

overcomin g the problems associated with the over-dynamic labour market.

\ In 1935, the establishment of the Seaboqd marketing group put an end to H.R.

MacMillan Exp,ort 's control over offshore lumber marketing and precipitated a new rush for

timber. MacMillan suddenly found himself frozen out of the export business with very

little producing capacity of his own. The formation of Seaboard helped launch

MacMillan's full-scale expansion into the production side of the industry. MacMillan's

efforts over the ensuing years'to assemble plant and log stocks with which to maintain his

share of the export market initiated a new wave of expansion and concentration in the - ,

industry. In 1935, as well, Bloedel, Stuart and Welch merged all of its provincial holdings

into one organization headquartered in Vancouver. The trade agreement worked out with

the United Kingdom in 1932 brought dramatic increases in offshore exports and large-scale

capital investment into lumbering areas like the Alberni Valley.17

Industrial consolidation went hand in hand with another trend-the diminution of

the open log market. Already, companies operating in areas tributary to the west coast of

Vancouver Island, such as Alberni Pacific Lumber and BSW found it necessary to run

integrated operations. The shipping distance from east coast and mainland camps, and the

relatively small west coast log market precluded the establishment of either independent

mills or logging carnps.18 BSW's east coast operation and those of other large firms such

as Canadian Western Lumber were also integrated. With the proliferation of timber

licences in the first decade of the twentieth century, however, many independent logging

companies had been establishA on the mainland coast and eastern Vancouver Island. Prior 1

to World War One, and into the 1930s, an open market for logs, the so-called Vancouver

Log Market, existed alongside a smaller integrated sector. Even these larger integrated

f m s utilized the open market often as a means of preserving their own privately-held

timber for future use.lg '

As companies such as MacMillan and BSW were pouring millions into new milling

facilities, they could no longer rely on independent operators for their log supplies. There 1 i is some evidence that by the late 1930s, the number of major independent logging

companies producing for the'open market was dwindling. Certairily this appeared to be the

case by the opening years of the war. MacMillan named nine companies, supplying him

with a large proportion of his logs, that "logged out" between 1939 and 1942 as the best

stands of high grade timber in the valleys and lower slopes of the coastal region were

depleted. To maintain log supplies, the large lumber companies acquired extensive tracts of

timber through purchases such as that of the Crown granted Rockefeller timber on

, Vancouver Island by MacMillan, APL, Canadian ~ e s t e k ~ u m b e r Company (CWL) and 3

the Victoria Lumber and Manufacturing Company. In some cases timber was acquired I

through the outright purchase of small logging operations, plant and timber supply

together, even further reducing the number of camps selling on the op&n rnarket.20 - The position of open market operators working Crown grant timber previously

exempted from provincial log export restrictions was further damaged by the Timber

Control's ban on fir log expozs in 1941, and on hemlock and balsam exports in August

1942. The BCLA estimated the loss of the Puget Sound market cost these operators more

than four dollars per thousand on theh total cut. The reduction of open market logging was

particularly pronounced amongst fir operators, those most affected by depletion of cheap -

accessible stands of timber. Independent logging persisted longer itl the hemlock and

balsam stands.21 C

An important factor which enhanced the expansion and development of the larger -

firms was their ability to afford better the application of more advanced logging methods \

and employ the talents of trained logging engineers. Since the 1920s, firms such as "

Cornox Logging and Railway, BSW and Industrial Timber Mills (ITM) had been applying I

the principles of rational management to their operations in an attempt to increase

production. BS W, which introduced power sawing into its camps in the 1930s, proudly

claimed the distinction of being the first large-scale user of such equipment in North

America. By 1941, the Bloedel camps worked almost exclusively with power saws.

4Patemalistic schemes, SF as employee clubhouses,industrid councils, company '. insurance plans and the creation of logging communities were d e s i m by these companies

to neutralize unrest and create a more reliable and stable workforce capable of the teamwork

required to maximize the utiliption of improved production techniques an a year-around

basis.??

.9 '- . .

In logging, the trend toward concentration of production'was quite marked. While e

in absolute numbers small logging outfits incr ased during the war, due largely to the e proliferation of contract truck logging in areas of marginal access and profitability, their

share of the total cut was minor. By 1943, the nine biggest operations, or 1 :3 percent of .

the total, accounted for 43 percent of the total cut, while the next 34 largest, or five percent,

cut 12 percent of the total timber. In the middle of the scale, 27 percent of the operators

accounted for approximately 14 percent of the cut, while at the bottom end, 36 percent of

the operators had only one percent.23

With the shrinkage of the open log market, and the disappearance of cheap available

stumpage, the smaller independent mills werd thrown out of work as well. The average

yearly m b e r of mills that closed down between 1933 and 1942 was 1 30.24 These factors

were of even greater relative importance after the start of the war, when straight business

failure would have occurred less frequently. As evidence of the serious plight of the '

independent operators, in February 1943, the Timber Controller announced a one doll& per ;

thousand increase in the price of all logs cut by them for sale to log-buying sawmills, the

increased costs of lumber production to be refunded by the The trend, I ,

9

however, was apparently inexorable. By 1947, out of a total af 254 coast sawmills, 21 (or

8.3 percent) accounted for 51.5 percent of the total value of lumber production; 75 . .--

medium-sized mills, almost 30 percent of the total, had 27.1 percent OF the value of 0 4* *

production, while another 37 perceat had product valued at 1.4 percent of the -

I? was quite clearly to the largest most powerfuI companies operating mainly with

the best of the available fir timber, such as BSW, Elk River, Comox Logging, ITM, APL; w

Malahat Logging, Lake Logging, an -Salmon River Logging that this trend toward -

integration of woods and mill operations most emphatically appliedn And notably, it w&

widun the workforces of these large forest complexes that the TWA would make its greatest . x 9

.9

Y f

inroads in the early 1940s. Union pressure within these,operations, short of signed union Coi

I agreements, often led in ;he earl) years to improved wages and conditions design@ to

undermine the union, and stabilize the workforce.28 Such improvements also helped

further to undermine struggling open market operators during a period of labour scarcity.

. The large integrated lumber frms, heavily capitalizqdpthrough recent exbaniion and 9

% - +?

modernization of facibtiks, had, like the pulp and paper companies, a tremendous interest in ds

maintaining unintempted production and a stable industrial relations climate. The British

Columbia pulp and paper industry, with a ratio of capital investment per employee in 1942

of $16,295, had moved much more quickly to establish a working relationship with its,

employees through their trade unions, the International Brotherhood of Pulp Sulphite and

Workers and the International Brotherhood of Paper Makers. In the sawmill

industry inrgeneral, with a ratio of capital investment per employee of 09y $2895, the cost

of labour instability was not so high. For the leading sector of the industry, ~ o w e v e a ~

composed of a few highly integrated operations, as with. the pulp companies, labour

relations stability was imperatige. Initially stability was equated with the open shop and

cozy agreements with company-dominqted employee committees. Eventually, events li

would make the continuation of that system impossible to m a i n t b . Stability would then ,-

have to 'be achieVed through establishing a wqrkiig, indus6-wide relationship with the

, f *

The concentration of prodlction, the demise of the open log market and the - emergence of a grou'p.of integrated, modehizing, highly-capitalized industrial leaders,,

27 * together with the labour supply conQitions in the indusfry, by 194J-42 created an

9 .. unprecedented structural opportunity for organiziqg woodworkers, m e industry as a

whole now became more vulnerable to attack through certain key companies. ' W e wartime .

labour shortage, in theory at least, gave the IWA new leverage to ocgani'ze amongst scarce n

and highly-valued logging and mill employees. In practice, in the logging sector.

particularly, the problem of a fluctuating workforce often hampered organizational efforts;;

as not only the unorganized, but also key union 'p~pie chosi: to go down the road rather

than to stay and fight for signed union agreements. *

The naturepf the workforce in the woods worked both for and against the WA, , . . <-

0

As Gordon Hak has ably argued regarding lbggers in the Alberni Valley, "Their unique job '

- 3 . culture and ethnic composition (largely Scandinavian) made them outsiders.." The logger's' *

world c e n q on Vancouver, where he often mqde his home, skidized and hired on, but it

also "encompassed the entire coastal region." historic ally, the union movement in the

woodworking industry' focussed on the logging sector where conditions were most .

unsatisfactory and where a particular job culture provided a basis of organization. Coast

logging operations by the 1920s and 30s were mechanized, largescale factory-like " %-

concerns which, on the average, employed considerably more workers than sawmill

operations. There was a high level of cohesion and unity amongst coast loggers, based on Z *

common grievances arising from shared working experiences which formed the basis of a

militancy and class consciousness. Traditionally, however, given the failufe of the ,,

organized labour movement to establish itself in logging, t'he logger's "willingness to quit

and move on was the only avenue of resistance" open to him. In fact, the very peripatetic

nature of his employment could help the logger ensure a good reputation throughout the, m

x. C

region and a certain degree of independence. These hab& of individualistic resistance were 6,

hard for the IWk tqcrack, and persisted long af~cr the "hardy and carefree" image of the

lumberjack had lost any real basis in the actual relations'bf production.30 They persisted in C '

the absence of any other concrete defence against substandard wages, conditions and

board, or the enmity of a particular boss.

Millworkers, especially those with particular skills such as %awyers, filers or

stationary engineers, were more likely to be closely tied to the communities where they

worked and lived. Moreover, to the extent that.mil1 workers were also urban workers, ' P

those with higher-skills and of ~ u r o ~ e a n and Canadian descent in particular wouldhave B

been subject to the forces of moderation and "labourism" imposed by the more complex r

city envhnment. What Robert McDpnald has ably argued f ~ r an earlier period probably

still held true for the Vancouver mill operative at the end of the thirties despite the "

B .I - intervening years of depression. The skilled operative, often a family head who had

*

-.joined the Odd el lows h d g e , owned or rented a small cottage in Mount ,

Pleasant and voted in provincial and municipal elections lived in a very! different social world than the single loggers •’or whom cheap hotels,! 'skidway saloons,' shooting galleries, prostitutes and Sunday evening ' Wobblie meetings c titutd Vancouver ~ b c i e t ~ . ~ ~

In addition,- according to a s t d y of the 1919 Vancouver working class, a high

concentration of unskilled Asians in both the shingle and saw sectors tended to make the

mill workforce in general not necess*ly less militant, but more difficult to organize by

whitc,'skiiled trade unionists. The more s e k - and unskilled mill work 'became typecast as $ *

Asian work; thehore white workers shied away.32 1 I

In sum, the racial, cultural and linguistic complexity of-Eke mil4 workforce, as well

as its often urban character, tended to retard integration of union organizing across the Q P . . ,

forest industry as a whole, and reinforced a tendency to concentrate on the logging camps.

But after 1940, the labour market in the woods made it even easier fdr a logger to quit camp -l

I " ?

to seek Bn individual solution to his problem rather than remaining arid engaging in a .&-,

- , coll&tive and prolonged struggle for improved wages and conditions. A thical e x i d l e - 4

of the problem occurred at APL Camp 1 in September 1940. The fallers and buckeri there 4Y '

. demandsd a wage increase by circulating a petition. The crews left camp and held a

meeting to elect a neg%ating committee. When the committee called a stkond ~ e e t i n g to L

report on the progress of negotiations, they found the majority had deserted t k cause and 0 2

gone elsewhere in search of a better deal. As a result, the right to negotiatem agreement 6

was lost.33 The following spring, at a Bloede $2.50 a day were \

L working three weeks with the intention of going back to town soon as they raised , - d

enough travel moncy. When organizer, on Barbpur asked thenyto stay and fight for

better wages, they refused.33 , - - ..

By the January 1942 District One convention, the problem of transiency had ,-

become so severe, a resolution was passed empczwering the union to conduct a campaign-of

"education" in order to stop it. One delegate thought this 'was fair:as far as the bigger

camps were concerned, where a logger had a fighting chance to earn a few dollars and gain

I better conditions. But there were some. camps on the coast,- he pointed out, where it was . I

Lrnpossible for any logger to stay.35 Nigel Morgan noted the severity of the problem could !

2 gauged by figures given by the Union Steamship Company to the Unemployment -(

Tnsurance Commission. In 1941 that c o m p a n y ' c ~ e d a total of 12,000 passengers to f i l l \

@OO'logging jobs. Instructed Morgan, "that gives a better picture than anything else of

hat we are up against in trying to organize." Other examples given by the District + , '

j e c r e t q where turnover had undermined co solidation of the union were at Camp 8 at I ?

howichan Lake, the A'PL 'dperation at Alberni and BSW's at Menzies Bay. ~n ' t he latter i

' I cbse, the whole camp went out on strike to forc the rehiring of two fallers fired, allegedly,

/ . 1

union activity. The twq loggers came to Va and took jobs demonstrating power

s at the Exhibition, while the other crews the pavement.%

Anotherlegacy from the days of the and the first L W U was the "syndicalist" . I

t ndency to by to build ap organization exclusive y around immediate grievances on the i l job. In the first year after the formation of the A, union organizers such as Hjalmar i

Bergren in the Lake Cowicban area, and John ~ / ~ u i ) h in the Queen Charlottes, faced the

1 lcbfficult task of convincing men steeped in the Wobb y legend to adop! the longer-range

' : ). pl& of establishing theiunion and negotiati?/g signe collective agreements instead of . . i I

f I ( resomng to a strike over,efery "two cent i ~ s u $ . ' ' ~ ~ ' \ =-. j i

i, The union"s l a c of a systematic p ogramme h een demonstrated by the I I

"i i / month smke at Blubber Bay, which pa in its small res s. At the time there had been,

i some debate 'within District One a q u t inl/esting so much rt in such a small operation,

+#

- i when the whole coasta1indh-y tq be organized. the aftermath of the strike,

; dues paying members ip reached a lo of 226, concentrat mostly at Lake Cowichan. '-I ' P I I I I t

s

Out of a sense of frustration and desperation, Bergren assumed the District presidency at a

small meeting in July 1938. In an effort to prevent what he sxw as the very possible 1

disintegration of the fledgling union in British Columbia, Bergren launched an effort at'the

second Disuict Convention, in January 1939, to develop a concrete programme and plan of

action. A one dollar a day increase and signed agreements would become the new aim /' i I

throughout the industry. The convention of 60 delegates also pledged itself to industry-

# Gide overtime pay, and elimination of piece work and the blacklist. With the help of the I

"Loggers Navy,"consisting at the time of one vessel, the "Laur Wayne," an organizational

programme would,&oncentrate on key areas, namely the Queen Charlottes and Lake

Cowichan, where the,union already had a basis on which to build. A political action i

agenda was adopted which advocated low-cost housing, a shorter working week, ?

. unemployment insurance,&tter pensions and various other 1egUlative improvements in C

areas affecting woodworkers. Following the co.nvention, the District Council iqitiated

"?reen Gold," a series of weekly 15 minute radio broadcasts over station CJOR, financed

by the manager of the W to loggers and millworkers

in the Vancouver newly-appo&ted District

secre taw. ~ i g e l ' ~ o r ~ i n ? ~

Coming f r o m a lower middle-class backbound, Morgan emerged a? a young J

socialist i n the law 1930s Moving from Galiano Island' to Victoria, he joined the local

CCF club and spent much of his time as an advocate for socialism. In 1936, he provided

moral support for s6k ing woodworkers at "red" Lake Cowichan. From this early contact

with Bergren and others, he soon became head shop steward at a small Victoria mill and

then District vice-president, be being appointed acting secretary of the District Council b tn March 1939. At the founding convention of the Canadian Congress s f Labour in 1940,

and agrrin in 193 1 , hqorgan would head the left-wing slate of nominees for Congress office -

8 -

against Asron hiosher. Kot a tembly great thinker or leader of en, Morgan lacked the P "common touch" of Pntchettand had a greater tendency towar s bureaucracy: More a 4

politician than a tradg unionist, his activity in the labour movement quickly led Morgan to \ *

the leadership of the Labour Progressive Party (LPP), which he assumed in 1945. From

that position he would continue to play an important role in XWA affairs up to 1948. While

he lacked a background in the industry, Morgan's administrative and political skills were,

nevertheless, a badly-needed asset on the District Executive in the early years.40

The union's gfforts were also bolstered at the beginning of 1939 when communist

labour inteuectual, A1 Parkih, assumed the editorship of the Lumber Workex and set about 0

the job of utilizing it as a vehicle to advance the District programme.. John McCuish, an

experienced logger from eastern Canada (deported from the United States for his part in the%

northwest lumber strike of 1935), joined the mion as field organizer in 1938. He quickly

became president of local 1-7 1 and a key figure in the organizational dnve in the charlottes, s

then "fleet-headquarters" of the Loggers' Navy.41

Despite the adoption of a constructive programme of action at the 1939 convention,

little progress occurred that year. Assembled once again in convention at Vancouver in -.

January 1940, delegates heard President Bergren call for a practical line of action to

implement the programme by bringing it before the majority of workers as a means to %

organize. According to ~ e r g r e n ~ s analysis of the situation, locals were still srruggling too d

independently. The old Wobbly tendencies had not yet been eradicated. "It takes

organization to build organization," Bergren told the convention, s "and without this

necessary inner organization 3t.s next to impossible to make any progress." I t w a s

necessary to wipe out the lines" established by local union jurisdi~tions.~2 To

organize properly, the a District-wide approach w i t h the actual forces in

the field worlung "under a centralized leadership.. .having the full support and confidence

of the mernbe;ship." T o \ ~ a r d s that end two important recommendations were passed.

First, all organizers and o ganizational activity would be under the direction of a cenvalized P I . . leadership, in this case the Disrnct Executive Board, which of course was controlled by-the

1 communist cadre. Each local b a s to lend fu l l assistance to local 1-80 in establishing such

an organizational base in the Courtenay area.43 Such a centralized leadership would then

be in a position to place two organizers at Port Alberni and to mdce use of the Loggers'

Navy organizers working predominantly on the Queen Charlottes. Secondly, the District

Council was directed to petition the International Executive to hold a second referendum

ballot44 to increase the per capita tax from 25 to 50 cents in order to strengthen the

International's ability to conm bute to District One's organizing campaign. In addition, a

recommendation went out to all British Columbia locals to authorize the'District Board to

issue a referendum ballot to increase District dues by 25 cents to $1 S O per month.45

Under the direction of the ~ i s m c t Board, consisting of the Dismct Executive and

local delegates, a new approach would be undertaken with a view to organizing the entire

industry around common demands to be won through signed agreements. But since the

union did not have the saength or resources to go into every operation up anddown the

coast, i t was necessary to focus on certain areas, and even at different times on certain k

operations in those areas. "It just reminds me," said secretary-treasurer of Local 1-71,

Ernie Dalskog, a man with long roots in the woods, "of when a faller puts down a tree and 0

t

drives in a wedge. The industry is llke a tree and we will have to drive in a wedge *-

J

wherever we can and by and by the tree will fall over."46

The largest concentrations of loggers were on the Queen Charlottes and around

Lake Cowichan and Port Alberni. As far as organizing the mills was concerned, Pritchett

argued that i t would be necessary to cobcentrate on certain big mills first; in particular the

VLM operation at Ch mainus, which was tied into the Cowichan Lake log supply, the huge e CWL mill at Fraser Mills, as well as certain Victoria mills such as Lemon-Gonnasson and

Cameron. On Vancouver Island efforts 'were aimed at the so-called, "eight-camp group"

which included the operations of the big ~ss&iation companies such as BSW, CWL,

. APL, .ITM.as well as Lake Loggmg. The idea was, as Dalskog noted, "to place our best

men in the bigger camps, then the smaller camps will have to improve conditions or they

h i l l not have a crew."47

Once the "best men" were placed in these strategic operations, it was necessary to

A build a broader organizational structure around them, without, however, reverting to a

situation of total local autonomy. The sub-local structure was thus devised as a way both

to create some permanent local structure and collective discussion of issues in the face of an

extremely transient workforce and scattered, often isolated work sites; while maintaining J 3

District control through the local executive. It was a structure quite appropriately devised' cP

for an organizational period during which the union was attempting to win a membership '

base, bargaining agent status and signed contracts. By the end of 1940, Local 1-80 had

three sub-loqals in operations at Rounds, Ladysmith and C m e n a y . -In December, the

structure was also set up in the Queen Charlotte camps whose 600 to 800 employees were -

within the sprawling boundanes of the mainland logging local 1-7 1

Throughout the year the District had encountered serious problems establishing a +

union presence in the face of continuous turnover. Contact with the Queen Charlotte camps

was maintained through the "Laur Wayne" organizers. During 1940 they made three trips. 1

The first one resulted in a wage increase of 50 cents a day. A second unsuccessful foray

was aimed at consolidating the organization through a signed agreement. Camp delegates

were elected to carry on negotiations, and the organizers left. But with the fluctuation in

membership, the efforts of the committees were undermined and negotiations collapsed in

all but one operation where the men wdn recognition for the right to bargain collectively but

no signed agreement. On the third m p , the Loggers' Navy discovered that in two of the e

operations, two-thirds of the men wire n e ~ . ~ 9

In summarizing the problem on the Queen Charlottes in their officers' report to

Local 1-71's annual meeting in December 1940, President John McCuish and Dalskog

noted that due to fluctuation, the ion had at one time or another had members in every "f camp. They urged, however, that only when union men stuck tmthe job and fought

collectively for wages and conditions would gains be obtained. Toward that end, they

recommended the establishment of sub-locals which would ideally meet on the same date

and conduct the business of the union simu~tarieously. Sub-local minutes would be sent to --I

i a

, the local office, while in turn, local minutes and decisions taken in Vancouver would be , +*

relayed to the sub-local delegates. Pritchett summarized for the loggers' annual meeting the

difference between a camp committee and a sub-local. In the camp committee you depend

entirely on one man to do the work, he told the delegates, and fail to develop new leaders to I

organize the 30,000 woodworkers: "The sooner we have ten or fifteen Dalskogs,

: McCuishes and Bergrens, the soonerlhe Union will go ahead, and the smner the members

will understand how to negotiate contracts, how to go up against employers, and the

strategy and tactics to be used."50 _ 1 >

1

s < The union's organizing problems, however, were not resolvable entirely through . -

9 structural innovations. Centralized leadership through a complex District-local sub-local

structure could not alone stabilize union membership in specific operations. That could

only be achieved, the District bfficers believed, through the negotiation by these locals and s

sub-locals of signed agreements. In November 1940, Pritchett pointed out to the &a1 1-

80 annual meeting that total local membership had increased over the year by less than 200,

from 650 to 840, despite the addtion of 515 new members. The problem was quite simply

that the organization established after step one-organizing the unorganized to the

maximum extent possible-was not being consolidated and stabilized through signed

collective agreements with seniority rights, which would go a long way to eliminating the

"tramp logger*' phenomenon. 'As well, Morgan pointed out to the same meeting, such

agreementswould give locals a means to combat discrimination and intimidation of union

employees which often forced them to leave the job.51

Signed ynion agreements were, of course, preferable, but under existing labour

legislation they were next to impossible to get. As Pntchett argued in December 1940, with ?

Canadian governments pushing for employer-employee committees in order to establish

company unions. just like the "4-L union" in the American Northwest during World War

One, "if you demand a union agreement, you are immediately pushing off 50 percent of the

I .

workers, H'hich gives the operators the Ehance thby are looking for, .to divide us." . he - *

6-

strategy to be pursued, accordipg to Bergren, was to put a union agreement bn the table, in \

B @ order to place its future possibility before the membership, while being prepared to settle 4 d

for an employee agreement with safety and grievance.cotnmittee~.~~

Pritchett, Morgan and Bergren clearly believed that a real organizational

breakthrough for the I*A depended on, and would be preceded by, the Successful

negotiation of such agreements, union or no. This belief w"a based, in part, on their own C 2.

experience on the British Columbia coast. But Pntchett, in particular, wag no doublt keenly

awareqthat the spectacular membership gains in the major American CIO unions in 1936-

*37-unions such as the UAW, UE and the Rubberworkers--came only after collective "

bargaining contracts hadbeen signed. As historian Nelson Lichtenstein has argued of this

organizational breakthrough, it provided a "protective shield': that gave rank-and-file

workers a "sense of liberation from older factory hierarchies and a visible link to their more

forceful shopmates," Signed union contracts were, according to Lichtenstein, "a powerful *

symbol of the fact that the supervi'sor and the foreman were not omnipotent and that the

union cadre represented an alternative nexus of legtimate authority in the plant."53

In Canada, the industrial unions, pvticularly in secondary manufacturing, were 4

Q

experiencing a period of record growth between i940 and 1942.5~ In comparison, the

I W A was still lagging behind, despite, and-in part &cause of the labouf shortage. Pritchett

encapsulated the IWA dilemma in his speech to the'founh annual District convention in

January 1941. The union was still pfagued with a f luctuakg membership because i t had

not yet consolidated its organization around contracts which would establish conditions

such that the logger would not be prone to leave camp. But, a little furthgr on in hi,s

speech, he asserted the only way to get better wages and conditions was to remain on the 4

job.' How did the union break out of this cycle of frustration and failure. Pntchett had t h e

answer, and his awareness of recent CIO history no doubt provided it:

'u

When we have got to the point whe employer will negotiate with us, we will then have consolidat tion to the point where we kan~ go ahead to the next step of i mbership, raising wages; and improving, conditions to a hi en we will be on a par with our American brothers with a ts an hour, 90 cents an hour average.55

To get such agreements in British Columbia, given an organizational core in a 4

particular operation, two basic prerequisites were necessary. First, the ICA Act had to be __ -.

amended to eliminate the restriction in section five denying bargaining agent rights to 5

unions formed after 7 becember 1938. Further, it had to provide for an efficient method of

determining when a dispute existed through a system of secret balloting of employees,

supervised by the Department of ~ a b o u r . ~ ~ Second, the union had to improve its

negotiating techniques. Toward that end, the 1940 District Convention had elected to attain

the services of the left-wing. Pacific Coast Labour Bureau (PCLB) as economic researcheri

and advisors to help prepare negotiating briefs for union committee^.^^ The PCLB

undertook to prepare a booklet for the IWA, based on a similar one they had done for the

Boilermakers, on how to negotiate a contract. Nigel Morgan, in particular, seemed to

appreciate the possibilities of a systematic approach to coll&tive bargaining: d

We can never sit down with the boss and h&e to get anywhere unless we have planned the whole thing out beforehand, as they do. When we meet a cunning employer, who has sat down with his lawyer beforehand and figures the whole thing out, he has us where the hair is short and he b t p ~ us down. We have to realize that we are up against a well-oiled rnr~hine and we have to be prepared.58 '

lncrehsingly the union would engage the battle for trade union rights ~q the far-

from-level playing field provided by the state. This battle would requirg: well organized

briefs laden with statistical and legal documentation and refined arguments that would have I

mys~ified many veterans of the lumber wars. While the local organizers continue4 to I

forcsnke material comforts as they dogged the operators through the woods, the WA Y

would wage its struggle for signed contracts and union recognition before boards of

arbitration and conciliation, as well as within the legislative lobbies of the provincial and -

national labour movements.

acv: The IWA Versus the 1CPi .m

The IWA quest for legitimacy in the coast lumber industry quickened during the

iears 194 1-43. District strategy was to force the major employers into a contractual

agreement with the union as the key to an organizational breakthrough in the industry. The

strategy of th; industry was to resist the contractual recognition of the IWA as bargaining

"agent, using as its chief weapon the anti-union legal structures governing industrial

relations in British Columbia. In order to generate broader moral support for their position,

the lumbermen raised the spectre of communist entrenchment in the forest sector, the basic

engine of the province's industrial pr0duction.l

Anti-communist rhetoric served to justify existing labour statutes, the open shop

and even the unfair labour practices of both employers and state bureaucrats. Much of this

rhetoric drew sustenance from Party policy on the war, thocgh it Is argued here that the

IWA trade union agenda had an integrity of its own. A brief survey of Parfy and IWA

positions 6 n the war prior to Teheran will serve as useful backgr6und to the following ', I ' narrative. d

In August 1939, soon after the German invasion of Poland, Stalin signed a mn-

aggression pact with Hitler guaranteeing the neutrality of the Soviet Union and postponing k

a German attack against it. The sudden "Imperialist War" declaration by Stalin terminated

the period of the popular front against fascism. Under directions from the Cornintern, the

Canadian Party accepted the change in policy and adopted as its slogan, "Withdraw Canada

from the War." The fight agzinst fascism would be replaced by a fight against British,and

Canadian imperialism. In June 1940, the Canadian government b e i ~ a r d the Communist

Party of Canada illegal, and soon after internment of communists began. By the fall of

1 WC) over 100 were incar~erated.~

t I

Added to their list of organizational broblems and obstacles on the road to

legitimacy was the District leader's affiliation with a now unlawful association, not to

mention the stigmaattached to Party policy on the war. In fact, as Whitaker shows, the

repression of co&nunists during the 1939-42 period was only a particularly "ugq chapter"

in an "oqgoing story" of anti-communism and repression of leftists whtqh runs ,

B "consistently om World War <through the Great Depression to World War 11 and bn into

tho cold War years ahead.") Communist trade unionists who had lived through the &a of

the black list would continue to function during the period of the "underground party" 9s

well. Moreover, though the Party was technically illegal, it did maintain a legitimate face

through the weekly paper the Canadian Tribune, the National Council of Democratic

Rights, and through the views of such nationally recognized spokespersons as A.E. Smith,

Dorise Nielsen, A.A. MacLeod, as well as others in various province^.^

State repression of communists, while no doubt "ugly" during this period, was also

conditioned by political realiiy. The main political thru'st to the Liberal's anti-communist

policy came from its Catholic Q u bec wing, and was tewpered, throughout the period of ,: (f /

illegality by concerns within the cibinet and the civil service regarding its negative political

impact in English Canada.5 Of approximately fOO communists known to have been

interned, 24 were from Quebec and only four from' British Columbia.' In addition, about

one-third were left-Ukrainians, long-considered a "problem" by the RCMP, and

-particularly easy targets given their very visible presence in the Ukrainian Labour-Farmer

. temple^.^ The attack on communists in CIO unions, favoured by cabinet "hawks" like

- C.D. Howe (voicing CMA interests) was blunted by King's more "conciliatory" approach

to indus6ial relations.* By avoiding loud and drect attacks on Canada's war efforts, while

sticking to the more legitimate agenda of obtpining formal collective bargaining rights,

wmdworker leaders were able to continue with their trade union project i n thezrnidst of the

' kpressisn and conmvkny that swirled around the changing Party line.

+ , \ This project was $ade easier after the German attack against the SoGet Union on 22

June 1941: Quickly, in line with Cornintern Wections, Tim Buck called for a "National

~ x ~ ~ i c t o r ~ " against the Nazis. Soon Canadian commynists were &tongst the most 1.

ardent supporters of the war effoq. Continued pressure from Quebec delayed the release of

iriterned c6mmunists, but by September 1942 all were free. King's problems in k Quebec

oger conscription, and the influence on policy of Cardinal Villeneuve and Louis St.

Laurent, insured the maintenance of the ban on the CPC, but could not'prevent its legal f - - - -

reincarnation in 1943 as the "Labour Progressive Party."" This was particularly so given

, the potential political advantage to be gained by the Liberal party f r o m ~ m u n i s t support

of the government's war effon9 Expectations within' the prime minister's office bf

political support from a new, legal communist party were not misplaced. But, given the

primacy of the particular trade union agenda of the District One leadership, general Party B

strategy on the war did not govern the-tactics adopted i_n. the w d w o r k i n g industry, either

before or after the ~nvasion Of the Soviet Union.

During the period up to June 1941, in accordance with the Party's characterization

of the European conflict as an "Imperialist War," District One's communist leadership

emphasized that the best line of defence for the working class. was through the preservation

of democratic rights and thd attainment of a decent standard of living in Canada.

Compulsory collective bargaining and signed union agreemenu were viewed as integral

elements of this programme. There is no evidence, as far as the District leaders are

concerned, of any strategy to "sabotage" the war effort, despite their opponents' claims to

the contrary. Rather, the Party consistently sought to exploit wartime conditions to

consolidate the dnion, as we have seen. In this regard, it is important to note, District One -

was quite in line with the approach of both coinmunist and non-communist industrial

unions in the still-neutral United States. Only in mid-1941 did CIO officials move towards Q

a "no-strike" policy i n an effort tb maintain good relations- with the Roosevelt

t

s -69-

-7 .(:

admini~tration.'~ No Canadian unions seriously entertained the suggestion of a nb-strike

pact with the anti-labour Mackenzie King government in 1940."

.I In 1942, with the besieged Soviet Union now part of the alliance against fascism, I

the argpments for compulsory collective bargaining changed; trade union tactid?, such as b

the use of the strike weapon, did not. District One, as a CIO affiliate, was loosely

connected through the International to the emergency no-strike pledge of the American

unions-unions that had long since won the battle for legal r ecogn i t i~ . This pledge was P '"

part of a deal with the National War Labor Board (NWLB) whereby a standard . o

\

maintenance of membqship formula would automatically apply to any union whose lead2rs &. b ., F'

1 L

"agreed to enforce the no:shike pledge and otherwise cooperate with the productionc - -

effort,"12 There was no question of District One leaders obsmc"ng the productipn of$& ,. .. ' .' . I .

materials. But without the basic security of union recognition, an unconditional ~ao'-strike 8; , - * r , 1 , pledge would* have been foolhardy, leaving the union at the mercy of tI$open 'shdp ' < '

operators. Thus, it was not adopted, in spite of urgingqfrom Pritchett's old comrade from %

Q , * c. ;he American longshoremen's union, Hany Bridges.13 - c

- 7 c .i -

% A

At the January 1942 District convention, the officers' report was f u b f warnings * - .--

concerning the dangers qf world fasci~t domination. The attack on the Spviet Union had . e

LI

biked any hope that the war could end short of complete military victory. "It iS ow^ ? - .

apparent that the fight is one for survival-for life and death-and that nothirig4ess than an F" ,

& C O . all out effort will be adequate," the officers urged. Otherwise, the destructiq of all . . _

progressive organizationi, including labow unions, would likely ensue. The bfscers

wholeheartedly applauded the pledge of Mackeozie King for all-out support to thq

democratic world front. To implement maximum efficiency at the point of production, the

District convention passed a resolution in support of the Industry Council Plan first .

- propded by the C~O 'S Philip Murray, and endorsed by the IWA International in 1941.

But more importantly, the 1942 convention urged the federal to enact a law to

provide for the legal right to organize and bargain collectively. 'The most concrete, a t

- constructive and' positive impetus we can give to the war effort to defeat the aggressors anii

defend demkracy;" the District officers ins'tructed the convention, "will be to build dur

union. and thereby collective bargaining relationships between the employers and

employees." The question of the strikdas an industrial relations weapon was not explicitly ( 1

raised, but neither was the right to strike forfeited.14 Whether or not compatible with '

Stah 's call fo; subordination of all working class and national demands to the defence of

the ~ iv i e ibn ion from its fascist enemy, the b sic trade union position remained entirely , 7 consistent with that of 1939140. a

i The hrst test pf rank-and-file support fdr the union programme of signed '

I

a&eements in a full-blown confrontation: with a major employer (and the provincial - !

$epartment of ad our) occurred at Lake ~owichan huring the.skxner of 1941, just at the

tbming point of the war. he Lake Logging Company (Lake Log) had been operating at ' I :

1 - .

Rounds, near Lake Cowichan, since 1933. ~cco r ld in~ to PCLB research, it employed,

between 275 and 300 workers in 1941, and was integrated with Crofton Export colfrpany,

which ran a booming grounds for ~ B k e Log and some other nearby camps as well as a

small mill. Lake t og was largely American-owned by the intermarried ~ o k d s and Hunter

families of Washington state and Kansas.15 By 1942, its operations had expanded to

include the Hill Logging Company and Paldi Sawmill-a total of olOM) men in eight

dfferent operations. In 1946 it would be absorbed into the expanding Koemer enterprise,

Alaska Pine Company, as Western Forest Industries.16 It was, in short, one of the bigger .

operations on strategic Vancouver Island.

For several years prior to 194 1 Lake Log had followed the unusual policy.of hiring

employees blacklisted for union work by other Association camps. As Eergren reminisced

much later, "these boys" hsd many y e a s experience in the woods, and other things being

i i equal, would have been highly valued employees pywhere, especially during a period of

acute' labour shortage. l7 -I - ,

With.such a high concentration of unibn activists, Local 1-80 was quick to organize . e

Lake Log. .At *the time pf the 1941 dispute, the union claimed to have signed up all but a

handful of employees. An employee committee agreement, signed in 1937, had &en

renewed in 1939 and contained grievancelarbitration procedures and provision~for-a safety

committee md voluntary dues c'heck-off. Lake Log pHid equivalent to the highest wage in

the industry, and with the help of the union safety committee, maintained the lowest

accident record in the industry, By >1940, Lake Loggers were also war workers, cutting - 0

timber for RCAF q l a n e hangars.lg

InJune 1941, after some months of negotiations, a 50 cent per day increase had - & . - been agreed upon and seven other clauses initialded. The company; despite its past policies

,'

-ancl.de facto acceptance of the union, refused to agree to formal union recognition, with

accompanying senjority, leave of absence .and union shop provisions. In the period since I . 1

the1939 agreement at Lake Log, the IWA had dearly become a-threat to the coast industry. P

in general. The cbmpany suhdenly found itself as ;he weak link in the-chain of major

coastal operations. By August, the Lake Log dispute was being-referred to in the press as

w "the test c p e of unionizatibn of Bfjtish Columbia lumber employees-threatening to alter

radically conditions in the entire backwoods industry."' Harold Huntei, the general s.

manager, admitted that his cempany had union agreements with the I W A in Washington,

but contended that such an'ageement in British Columbia, being the only one, would put

his company at a distinct disadvantage. Perhaps more to the point was District One's

contention that Ycertiin outside influences;" namely the BCLA, were preventing the ? -

company from granting union recognition.19

With negotiations at an impasse, the sub-local president, William Sutherland, called

a meeting for 18 June, where the members were advised by Nigel Morgan and Local 1-80

secretary Archie Greenwell, that a strike prior to compulsory conciliation would be illegal.

The loggers, though, voted 233 to "8x1 favour of quitting work "individually" as a way' *

around the technicAle&ilities of the ICA Act. Morgan clearly acquiesed in this approach, -

but there is no cvidence he "incited" the srction as later alleged by the company and some

loyal emplo! ees. Hunter himself addressed the protestors on 18 June telring them that they

were free to ty any other camp, so confident was he that they would soon return to the

enlightened co~!ditions at Lake Log. "The men stand on their legal right to quit," read 1

, ~ b r ~ a f l " s staterlent issued in Vancouver, "pending the co'mpany's admission that

d legitimate Unions have a right to be recogniz under the laws of Canada."*O t

if the tactics of 1941 had been borrowed from the arsenal of traditional logger - I

practices, traditi0n.d grievances over food'or lodging had not, by the union's ow^

admission, caused thc shutdown. The main ispues were the collective and long-term ones - \

f l of recognition, senio~ity and leave of absence, which were linked to one another as part of B

the upion strategy of mtrenching itself in inchvidual operations. The union's legal rationale

was not, of course, svdlowed by the provincial Department of Labour, which regarded the "

walkout as a strike lasting from 19 June untjl 7 July, when the men returned to work >

pending reference of the chspute to a conciliation commi~sioner.~~

Given the high level of organization in the camps affected, the commissioner, James

Thornson, could not successfu1ly:play the game of allowing the company to dispute the -

. representativeness of the existing bargaining camrnittee. That situation did not stop

Thbmson from aiding the company and a minority group of employees in their attempt to

discredit in other wais local 1-80's bid forrecognition.

With the conciliation pweedings underway, two members of this minority group,

Herbert Baxter and James Bailey, both ex-secretaries of the sub-local called on Minister of

Labour George Pearson to exprdss dissatisfaction with the &inner in which the employees I

committee was conducting business. They expressed a desire that con~iliation meetings

should be transferred f?om Vahcouver to Lake Cowichan where they and other workers

would be able to make representatio~s to the commissioner. Thus far, company officials

had objected to meetings being held at the Lake, presumably to make it more difficult for , *

the union to call rank-and-file witnesses. But, as Thomson wrote to Lake Cowichnn

Provincial Police Constable Harold J. Parsley, "since I have advised them of recent

. developments in this case, they agreed to meet at Lake Cowichan or anywhere else which

may be designated by me as most suitable or convenient for all concerned." Thomson

decided then tq move tke hearings to the Lake and wrote to the ~ons tabie for help in U

finding a meeting room. - While he acknowledged that he could not permit individuals or , a

minority groups to substitute for elected representatives, he was at liberty to listen to -,

representations by anyone outside of normal hearings. He wished the Canstable discretely

to let it be known he would be at the Hotel Lake Cowichan on 25 July where he codld be

1. 5 reached by such individuals. In particular, he wished that the loading crew from which the

. representation had recently been made to the Minister "be given ah oppoitunity to submit

certain information to me whch may have a very ducct bearing on matters in,dispute."22

F'rior to his trip to Lake Cowichan, Thomson appeared unaware of the connection

between Baxter, Baileyand the company. Bailey, for one, while secretary of the sub-local, e *

t ? .

had been charged with mishandling local funds and barred for life from holding dffice in .'

the union.23 The root of this union action lay in his and Baxter's attempts to,solicit support , -

.%

amongst the Crofton booming ground employees against the e;isting union' leadership. In

Thornson's estimation, union charges were not laid against Baxtef since he was a more

effective operator and was "fully aware of moves which have been made by those holding "

union office." But, after his hotel room interview with Baxter, Thomson also began to - , '

realize that the company itself was fully aware of this internal union dispute and was '

"encouraging certain.of the employees who are opposed to the views of the majority of the

membership to have someone representing our Department take a definite stand against the

inhviduals holding Union office and their policy." That policy, Thompson noted

ironically, h.ad untd quite recently been encouraged by company. officials who rather prided ,

themselves on the fact that "they were employing men.. .blacklisted for their activities in

every association camp iL the Pbvince." Thornson felt that the Department should nbt find

fault with this practice, but he refused to be "jockeyed into a positian where I would be

paving the wafi for company officials to take drastic steps against certain individuals.'~ The

, cornpan; ought to take responsibility "if their experiment had not worked out.'al %

While Thornson's sentiments appeared admirable on the surface, he was clearly

" irked that Lake Log management had laid itself wide open to be picked off easily by the

IWA at a rather crucial period in the development of industrial relations in the coastal - I

woods. He obviodsly resented the assumption of the company that it could use a few ~

disgruntled union members to manipulate the services of the Department of Labour.

~mportantl~, in his meeting with Baxter, Thomson provided advice as to a better way to go : . i

about diglodgng the current local leadership without any interference from outside parties. I

* '

As he reported in his confidential 'correspondence to Pearson, he advised Baxter "to

encouiage those who were dissatisfied with the actions of their representatives and with the

entire policy of the union, to solicit the support of workmen until they were in the position ,

b

. of having the majority." At that point "the question of changing the representatives and the

policy of the Union would be simple.'% *

If neither Thomson nor Pearson were very pleased with the management of Lake

. ' Logging, neither were ihey at all sympathetic with the I W A District o n e organi~at ion .~~. .

OU; of Thomson's clandestine chats with dissident leaders emerged a lengthy and very . ~

precisely worded petition, bearing the names of Baxter and seven other employees. This - document charged Morgan and Greenwell with "counselling, advising and inciting" the

employees of Lake Log, "to take action contrary to the laws of British Columbia and

conspiring to avoid the application of the Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Act of

B Britis Columbia" in the settlement of the di~pute.2~ i

h m s o n got nowhere with his conc i l i a t i~n ,~ the petition served as the centre-

piece of the compahy's case against union recognition. As it turned out, the arbitration

hearings, chaired by Dean F.M. Clement of The University of British Columbia, k a m e

something of a rank-and-file rally when the sessions were moved ro the scene of camp a + -

operatiogs at a smallz school house. By evening, 78 loggers jammed into the one-rocrm *

school. John Wigdor of the P ~ L B , who was representing the @ion, along with Nigel

Morgan, recalled the scene: '

\ d .

In ten minutes peopje were hanging onto the window sills and Mr. Hunter and the Brigadier General (J.A. Clark, K.C. representing the company along with-Hunter) and others insisted that to move to the cookhouse would be impracticable, but as the iltrnosphe~ began to get more suffocating and tempers rose in proportion @e Chairman was finally prevailed upon to a

move to the coo@ouse and I recall one of the crew, stating with a satisfied grin, that this represented already a minor victory, that the pressure of the rank-and-file already was beginning to be fekZ9

?

The session was finally attended by practically all 300 employees.30

In this partisan atmosphere, the company's case promptly irumbled. Its seven

\ employee witnesses, five of whom had signed the petition, stated under cross-examination

" Ih . u, '

at they favoured union recognitiqn. One signatory of (begetition said he did not know e U

why he had signed and subsequently withdrew his name. Baxter himself asserted t h k his nt charge against the union leaders was an internal union matter which shquld never have bem

b a . 'I

= I

brought into the open.)' On the offensive, Wigdor put forbard the case tha the IWA fully

recognized its responsibilities to its members and society at largeand cited as 'evidence ," , ,

briefs presented to various government bodies on forest conservation, unemployment . ,

. . insurance. .and workmen's compensation. In additioi, federal order PC 2685 and

President Roosevelt's 1941 Labour Day'speech were cited in support of trade. urifonism as a

the "foundation of democracy" in the fight against fascism. The union bqef concluded with4 - .

a suggestion of the significance of this first provincial arbitraion in a logging dispute, the

award from which would set a precedent for future awards in British Columbia's most*

important basic industry. A favourable award would mean that thousands of woodworkers

across the province "will recognize that a Board of Arbitration through a government-

appointed chairmen had recognized their fundamental and legitimate right to union

9, - In fact, the board, including union representative John Stanton, sought and found a

. compromise.on the issue of union recognition. As a concession to the company, or the

BCLA, the agreement would be with an employees Committee, but would include an article

providing for a union shop in addition to seniority and leave of absence provision^.^^ In

' the final analysis, the company would not be the fust in British Columbia to sign a union

agreement. But Morgan not inaccurately claimed the union shop recommendation, which *

L was gccepted by the workers, would have the same effect.34 The company, by its own 4h . -admission, did not strictly adhere to the union shop clause.35 But that hardly mattered to

* L

the IWA, or to the Party: The goals at stake were much larger: to establish a plateau from ,

which to continue to organize, a concrete basis for the policy of linking signed union V '

t agreements to a hiuvph over Hitlerism through greater industrial harmony and increased . . a .

production, and a'precedent for a more general recognition of the IWA i s bargaining . *

agent.36 . . . -

- The victary at Lake Log was followed quickly, in early 1942, by major gains at the 5

VLM plan1 in Chemainus, one of the biggest in the province and a key IWA target for

years. Hjalmar Bergren had returned to full-time organizing after the 1942 convention 9

agreed lo piac'e "Handsome Harry" htche'tt in harness a s ~ i s t r i c t President. Within a

periodLof rwo 6r thee weeks, &rgren signed up90 percent of the crew: "the biggeit and L

fastest organizational gain in the histo j of our ~ n i o r i . " ~ ~ At wllcre$ Logging a d BSW'S'

Menzies ~ a y camps on the Island, significant inroacs were made amongst the resident #

portion of the crews, largely family men, the majority of whom signed with the union for ' I

the first tim'e. During the sunfmer of 1942, ~ergrenshif ted his headquarters to Pon

Albsmi. and by November hiid s j g 4 up hundreds of new members.38

But organizational breaktpoughs could only be consolidated by signed agreements, -

and 1942 was to be a year of frustration in this regard. Unfortunately for the District One

jeaders, the big Association operators did not s h e their vision of labour legitimacy and

cooperation in-war production. Lake Log was too unusual a case to provide a pattern for

B

-77-

subsequent disputes, where the union had a w&er hold. The real battle-with MacMillan

Industries, BSW and CWL, where th*e job of organizing had not been completed and where

the strategy df signed agreements attained through Department of Labour intervention was \

more relevant but more elusive as well-s 11 lay ahead. A somewhat different corporate ,is 4 \

combination and new product lines provided the contested terrain.

111 8

I In 1935, Canadian Western Lumber joined Seaboard. In response, H.R.

MacMillan and E.B. Ballentine a plywood door manufacturer who had bought plywood

from CWL and sold through MacMillan Export, combined to build'the $250,000 British

Columbia Plywood plant, on the same site as MacMillan7 Canadmn White Pine complex in

Vancouver. As plywood became a war industry, the plant was expanded four times

between. 1937 and 1942. By 1944, two millibn dollars had been invested in the mill,

which utilized the hlghest grade fir !'peeler" logs. Though British ,Columbia's plywood .

capacity doubled during the war, total production came from just four large mills, which .

included a second MacMillan plant built at Port Alberni in 1942. During the war, plywood

production was the most technically advanced and fastest growing section of the lumber O .

i industry, and B.C. Plywobds quickly became theVlargest producer outside of t h t United

States.39 1 '

3

Plywood plants were run as three-shift continuous production operation& A . .' A

disciplined and compliant labbur force was essential to a smooth operation. Pnor to 1939,

MacMiUan's employees were represented by a company-inspired Conference C ~ m m i t t e e . ~

The plant manager customarily attended all employee committee meeting^.^' In the - . summer of 1939, in the midst of an IWA organizing drirrc, 51 IWA members were fired

a

. and replaced by boys employed at 25cents per hour under Minimum Wage Order-Number

49, which permitted up to one-third of employees of any operation to be paid less than 40

-

. (I . c

cents per hour. In the fall, non-union'men were hired to replace most of the boys. From *I

1939 to 1942, the c&npany enjoyed a union-free operation.42 4

B.C. Plywood was-an obvious target for IWA local 1-217, as part of the push for , Union recognition on the coast. By early 1942, the union, and the Party, had established a

faction within the Conference Committee headed by 1-2 17 president, Bert Melsness and

Bill Bennett. On 17 April, a wwk stoppage was called to force the company to m& a 1 G

joint application for a wage b n u s to the R M B . This application-was quickly rejected. At

meetings during late April and early May, the union increased its support, elected plant

officers and a separate contract committee to draft demand~ .~3 The company took the

opportunity on 4 May to lay off the entire third shift, alleging a shortage of pheler logs as , '

the reason. Though there was a supply problem due to a severe shortage of loggers, the .

timing of the lay-off was no doubt intended to undercut the union's drive. An immediate P

work stoppage was called and 'ameeiing ddressed by Pritchett, Morgan and Melsness. 7 * The union demanded that seniority be obse ed, especially since some of the oldest and k most experienced employees had been" laid off, allegedly, to find work in the shipyards.

After being addressed by the plant manager, the employees returned to their jobs. Since no #

agreement ehsted with the company on seniority, the employees Conference Committee

was informed by James Thomson on 7 May that before they could legally take any further

action, the employees would have to decide by majority vote that a dispute existed.44

Despite efforts by the company to resurrect the Conference Committee, the latter

was quickly being surp,assed. On 7 .May an IWA ballot on an application for conciliation - passed 357 to 5 , and an application made to Peqkon. On 10 May, a mass meeting at

Burrard ail was addressed by Harold Winch of the CCF. The following day, employees

voted 358 to 14 to oust the old committee and by' a similar majority installed a new

corknittee of five IWA members. The union calculated a total of 635 employees (including

185 fernaies) in the plant, giving it a clear majority of those involved in any dispute or 5

contract negotiation. The company alleged it had 723 employees, inchding all those laid

off. The union claimed a total membership of 49 1, and romphided to P e a ~ n that the lny-

off was really a lockout--"'re discrimination" aimed at the employees desire to form a

tqade union. On 15 May, Thomson was appointed Conciliation Commissioner to

The IWA's numerical support at B.C. Plywood was not nearly as firm as at Lake

Log, giving Thomson more leeway to manipulate procedures and stall for time in hope that

the union's suppoq might erode. In this re'gad he perfor&ed his task admirably, though B a

all the while maintaining the appearance of fairness. In-plant votes were held on 20 May

and 26 May giving sufficient majority for the commissioner to accept the existence of a

dispute, but neither margin (327 to 86 or 347 to 92) gave the I W A the majarity'out of 725

needed to be elected bargaining agent. On 20 May, 155 employees of the 602 actually on

the job did not vote. Many of these were women whom,Myrtle Hubble, IWA rep at the

plant, complained to Thomson had deliberately left the plant at three o'clock, phor to the

vote, most llkely under intimidation from management. .The IWA rejected Thornson's

suggestion that a joint committee of five IWA and two Conference Committee members be

- In the meantime the company continued its efforts to prop up the Conference

Committee. Relying on reports from members of this Committee, E.B. Ballentine j

complained to Thomson about the procedure for selecting representatives at the 20 May

meeting. On 29 May, the day preceding yet another scheduled vote supervised by

Thomson, the Conference Committee issued a notice charging'that the two previous votes

were inconclusive. It claimed to have worked out an agreement with the company d .

embodying the union proposals plus extra benefits, such a? paid vacation, which

management was willing to sign with an association of its owk employees. t horns on assured Ballentine that the RWLB. wodd'noi view such a benefit as a pay increase. The

IWA quickly countered witk a leaflet advising that the union had contacted the RWLB and

received advice that paid holidays would have to receive Boar+_approval. These f i n d

4

manoeuvres by the compaqy did little to change the results. On 30 May, Thomsan I

conducted a final secret ballot at the gate, the results of which were combined with a mail ,. . . "

ballot sent to laid-off employees. Eighty-one laid-off employees were determined tiy

Thomson to have quit, leaving a total of 644 employees in h, out of which the IWA polled

a clear majority of 369, the Conference Committee 143.47 @

Through the first tGo weeks of June: B.C. Plywood continued its ?ti-union t ~ d e .

Company lawyers wrote Pearson blaming his department for aiding the IWA in its effort to

disrupt a long-standing relationship with its employee group. The company held'two

informal meetings with the Conference Committee at which it was agreed to shorten the

apprentice period for women employees whom the company obviously perceived as a weak

link in the union's solidarity. A notice publicizing this offer was posted by the company.

A second notice accused the IWA of scuttling the deal by pointing out to the conciliator that Z

the ICA Act prohibited an alteration of wages or conditions during proceedings. There was

n,othing in the Act, however, to prevent'the company from carrying on such tapics aimed

explicitly at undermining the legdly-elected bargaining agents of its e m p l o y e e ~ . ~ " ,

'. . . Given the company's attitide tqward the IWA, the subsequent negotiations stood

no chance of success. The company refused to agree to reemploy Melsness and Bennett l

and some other IWA members once the log shortage was solved. It continued to offer to

accept all the proposed terms except for union shop, but would sign only with the

Conference Committee employees. Thomson tried unsuccessfully to get the company to I

sjgn a contract uilth the elected committee, but one which did not name the qnion as y a r t y i

.i

@the agreemerlt, as in the Lake Log case the year bef0re.~9

An arbitration board was constituted late in July to hear the dispute, including

questions of wJges, discrimination against union memkrs and union recognition. .The * -

K

rndjority 'award of Judge Bruce ~ o y d . Chairman, and R.H. Tupper, employee

representative, submitted on 2 September, recommended another joint application to the s. -

RWLB, found no discrirniriation by the company and concluded that since the IWA "was - 4

responsible for the genesis and continuation of this dispute," that no contract should be

made between the company and local 1-217. CCF MLA A.J. Turner's minority report

agreed with the others on wages, but found evidence of discrimination against Melsness,

with five and one-half years service, and Bennett, one of the company's original d

employees, both of whom were particularly active in union organizing. Turner called for

an end to "old fashioned anti-labour" attitudes characteristic of the large corporations in

British Columbia and the Pacific Northwest, which were not co6ducive to harmony. He I

pointed out the inadequacies of the Conference Committee as a legitimate bargaining

agency, and'found no basis for the company's opposition to the I W A because of its present.

leaders or past In releasing Turner's report, Pearson tried to assuage labour's

feelings by acknowledging that in his opiriion the time was ripe to consider amendments to

the ICA 'Act to compel employers to bargain with majority-elected comrnit tee~.~~

The following day, MacMillan industries placed a full-page advertisement in the

Vancouver Province in an attempt to pressure its plywood employees into accepting-the

majority award. The t imkr bosses slammed the IWA International's original position on

United States participation in the war, Qsrnissed its membership claims, and proclaimed the

fruitlessness of collective bargaining on monetary issues under war conditi0ns.~2

The next day, the union held a meeting open to all employees where a motion was

passed 357 to 5 to reject the award whenever a vote was actually conducted under

government supervision. The meeting also endorsed Pearson's statements on amending

the ICA Act, but requested him to force the company to bargain in this case while

legislation was p e n d u ~ g . ~ ~ The ICA Act required both sides to conduct assecret ballot vote,

which the government had the option of ~ p e r v i s i n g . ~ ~ hstrict officials hoped to use such 1

departmental supervision as a way of forcing the company's position. Pritchett vnote to

Pearson on 21 September noting the urgent need for cooperation and harmony in Canada's

war effort. In order to convince management of the Union's sincere desire to cooperate,

Pntchett requested Pearson to ap?oint a commissioner to call a meeting of all employees

where representatives o f both parties coutd explain the award .and a secret bglot be rl

conducted under the ,cornrnissioner's supervision. If the empl~ji-ees then rejected the .

' award, management,~ritchett hoped, wouM be killing to meet and negotiate with the

elected representative^.^^

Pearson's memo to Thornson on the matter belied the'good will of his earlier public

pronouncements. He expressed concern that the employees' elected represenptives had not .

\

yet properly conducted a vote, and'rejected ariy departmental responsibility in that regard. * b

"From the lack of action and the tone of ~ritchett's letter jt would seem to me that they have I

a not very firm hold upon the employees," he wrote to homson. "It might be wise,for

you to make a few discrete enquiries and we can talk before we meet ~ r i t c h e t t . " ~ ~ After

consulting with Ballentine q d Kennedy of B.C. Plywood, who apparently did not favour

any further government intervention, Thornson met with Pritchett and conveyed Pearson's

suggestion that the vote of the 20 September meeting constitute rejection, or, the employees

committee could conduct a further unsupervised ballot.57 -

It was clear that without the backing of legislative force, hinted at "by Pearson,

companies like MacMillan Industries would not budge from their traditional advocacy of - the open shop. In February 1943, local 1-217 was still attempting to get agreement on a

union contract but appeared to be losing some ground as only a slim majority of 239 to 198

voted against yet another proposed company agreement with its Conference Co~nmit tee .~~

Simultaneously with events a-t B.C. Plywood, a similar confrontation with another

major coast employer, Bloedel, Stewart and Welch, over the issues of discrimination and

union recognition took p!aceat Menzies Bay. By the early 1 9 4 0 ~ ; ~ ~ ~ ~ s was

centred on the Albemi area and the west coast Island camps tributary to it. The company '

had $2.9 million invested in its west coast logging operations, or almost twice the $1.5

million invested at Menzies Bay on the east side of Vancouver Island. The former

operation normally employed 750 log ers, the latter 450. 'Its own mills at Great Central f $

Lake and Port Alberni were supplied ldrgely by its west coast'camps. Menzies Bay, since

the *d-l930s, had been selling logs on the open market and was not considered by the

company to be a viable permanent operation. Logs from that cite werk not critich to . . c

sustaining the company's sawmills and were used to supply only part of the requi&ments "

., . - ,

of its Burnaby shingle rnill.59 - +

The dispute at the Menzies Bay camps in 1942 illustrated well the importance to the . 2 - - e - -

. = r IWA of achieving industry-wide bargaining. It also demonstrated once again the ne& for .. w

signed contracts 10 overcome the constant problem of a flactuating workforce and union .. .

membership, and the hecesiity of a new legislative framewoik as a prior Condition.for any . - , ,

of these further gains. Once again the involvement of 'Department of Labour officials- .

tended to undermine the efforts of the union' in favour of the company and its loyal

employees' committee.

Early in 1942, an 1 ~ ~ ' o k a n i z e r in camp, Alex Armella, was dismissed by the

camp forehen for "no good reason." Armella, who had been blacklisted by the Loggers ,

S k Agency for his union activities at Rock.Bay, was known by the foreman who wasted no

%- time in blowing the whistle on him once he started actively organizing. A spontaneous / /

. , . . 5 " - "* -+pike by the rest of the falling crews resulted in his reinstaterKent by the flustered foremad ,

. 9- / only to be followed shortly-afterward by the dismissal of Armella and therest of thg rew

P : .

of three for incorrectly falling: tree. The employees, unschooled in the I &' W

ICA Act, and lacking proper union direction, calledpa meeting by word of

ymrnittee and apply for coriciliition. Though proper meeting notice w/not given, thus

invalidating both the ~ 0 r n m i ~ a 2 selection and the application f& a conciliator, the /

ubiquitous Thomson appeared on the scene in an effort to dvent the dispute from . - 7 \

escalating into a union issue. At frst, he noted in>dkepodto Pearson, the employees' h Q

/' 2, committee had been restricted to camp employees andfie issue limited to the dismissal. t i

Only after some delay were union officials contactqand further meetings held leading to a C

broadening of the conflict. For this outcome,.~homson put the blame squarely on the

i n G..

shipulders of management for providing "an excellent opportunity" for the employees+to 0

f=----. iin~rporaye the larger IWA objectives.

h effort.! damage control, ,omson recommehded that the ~inist;r.@&mk s.

'----

?he breach of IdAAct procedure p d deal with the improperly elected committee in an effort

to settle the issue of the falling crew's dismissal, rather than insist on another meeting with - B

proper notice. In this case he feIt he had a better chance oE keeping the union out by '

1

speeding up the process, rather than by dragging it out. This decision was based on his pr.

h . observations of the nature of the workforce at Menzies Bay: "In our opini6n they were

1

quite sincere and very moderate in their statements." In addition, he noted that moh camp

employees were "Canadians who act in an entirely different manner with respect to a d < '

- ' dispute of this kind to thatwhich would apply in the case of a foreign element which, in \

previous years, was found to exist in logging camps." Thomso~l felt there' was a real, I

opportunity to keep the dispute local in h s instance since "practically all zhe representations

c. and discussions during our meehngs was directed and controlled in its entirety by.

*

employees of the company." These men were no doubt "quite capable of presenting the^

case" and felt no hesitancy ''cxpressing their views with respect to the relations between the

employees and Mr. Tom Daly, Camp S~perintendent."~~ ..

Implicit in Thomson's analysis were someJinterest&g assumptions that were

6 characteristic of gobernmen labour relations officials of the day. Unions like the IWA c \ could only really thrive in the absence of intelligent, articulate aid competent local leaders.

Canadian employees were more moderate than "aliens" and less likely to be attra&tu the

IWA. Larger issues such as union recognition dr the rights of workers to organize and . c3

bargain collectively were not intrinsicaUy of interest to the t y p e of &-and-file employee at

Menzies Bay. That thkse moderate Canadian employees might embrace the I W A would not a '

. I i .a,

in the h a l analysis-alter the department's 6 e w of the legitimacy of the union as bargaining -

agency. Such an outcome woyld only reinforce the notion of the union as'an effective

outside agitator capable of upsetting employee relations, particularly wktere an unreasonable

employer provided fertile ground

When the falling crew had been dismissed, the employees in fact had called in .

- Hjalmar Bergren and local MLA Colin Cameron to assist in a settlement. But the

reinstiement agreement of 6 March wo&d out with Superintendent Daly, and signed by

the elected committee, contained two restrictive conditions. The 6ky camp committee was

to be a safety committee qhosen by the men, the composition of which was to be changed

each month. All future d i s p ~ e s were to be settled without: outsiae interference at general h 2 ,i I

safety committeg mee$ng~.~l It quickly became clear that personnel manager T.J. Noble ,

' "36 -@ Gegarded the elected comrrfirtee's mandate as safety issues only, not other employee

K' - 9"

grie:ances.62 km, ;he companyappointed the fxst-aid attendant to act as secretary to

the committee and pkxeeded to lay off all the signatories to the 6 March agreement, ,

' , including the chairman of the committee, A ~ m e l l a . ~ ~

I t was apparent to the union that BSW had no intention of keeping the 6 March

agreement, let alone negotiating an agreement with any committee, even the company- ,

dominated safety committee. Bergren returned to Menzies Bay on 23 April, and posted

notices for a camp meeting the next day. One hundred and thirty-nine of 315 employees

attended. They elecfed a new gnevance and negotiating committee with employee John

hlulroney as secretary, and D.J. Donahue President, and voteod to apply for c~nc i l i a t ion .~~ 4 ..

On 28 April. T.J. Noble circulated a document addressed to Thomson of the

Department of Labour, for members of the Safety Committee to sign in which they

disclaimed any connection with calling or conducting the meeting of: 24 April. Three 0

members of tfte committee sieged the fetter. A fourth, Mulroney, refused having been b b .

elected secretary of the new g n e v m e committee. In writing to Thomson, Noble claimed

t h a t hlulroney only accepted his position not realizing he was already on a gnevance

committee (that is, the safety committee), and not knowing of the existence of the 6 March

agreement. Donahue, the new chairman, Noble claimed, accepted his office so as not to be tt

put in a difficult position wiih the *in, but assured ~ o b l e that the 24 April meeting h*d '

been forced on the employees by Bergren. "It is now obvious that the union leaders do not '

want conditions in this camp to run smoothly," Noble wrote Thomson, "and intend to

' 4, continue in their endeavok to stir up trouble." 6omson , who believed Noble, unlike

Daly, was conscientious regarding labour relations, accepted his version of events a*d met

- the new local leaders in early May in an attempt, once again, to settle matters without the B

In fact, corm-ary ta Noble's claim, on 30 April Mulroney had written gigel Morgan 61

explaining Noble's efforts at discrediting the 24 April meeting in order to prevent the

Minister of Labour from granting the empl~yees' request for conciliation. Noble, he wrote

Morgan, was cikulating a document adcktksed to Mr. Thomson, "soliciting signatures 6f

the 'safety committee' whic'h he is wont to call&e Safety and Grievance Committee-now 4

that the company has a grievance; but strictly Safety when it affects the employees-saying

we had nothing to do with the calling of the meeting on 24 Aprit" Two of the committee

members signed it, Mulroney wrote, but he refused. "If the company presents it," he

wrote, "it is notalegal in any way as we had no chance to discuss it in C~mmi t t ee . "~~ a

After meeting with Mulroney and Donahue, Thomson reported back to Pearson on

the results of his investigation. As the 24 April meeting had been improperly called, and ,

lacked a majority of employees, nothing decided there regarding a new committee, the

existence of a dispute or proposals for improvements in working conditions was valid, he

informed the Minister. He noted Mulroney had voiced complaints regarding company

interference with the Safety Committee and .had asked whether it Gas authorized to act as a

grievance committee. Thomson advised him that was an-issue between the company ahd

the ernpioyees, but that any further interference by the company with- respect tq the .: , . . : P I.'

composition-of the coinminee or in its meetings should be report& to the Department.

Thornson also conveyed to,Soble the comrnittek's wish to use a recent camp agreementat

Comox Logging Company as the basis for a new settlement at Menzies Bay camps.

" -87- ..

Thomson felt satisfied that the sole c a u s e d &e dispute had been certain recent steps by I

management that had created "a considerable amount of suspicion in the minds of the . a /

d employees.. .together with continual agitation by one or two Union organizers,"

aggravating a situation which "otherwise *odd ,have been forgotten entirely by the

employees at Menzies Bay." Thornson was s& he had "set the employees' minds at ease"

and felt tIi@ with careful handling it was not too late for the parties themselvis to arrive at

& amicable settlement." He assured pearson' that the attitude of Donahue k d Mulroney

"completely changed after we had explained to them fully their position." They apbarently j-

- agreed irr future to abide by the ICA Act and the 6 March dgreement with the company and

a

io await the minister's official decision on &efi application for conciliation before relating . . P

the substance of the meeting to the employee^.^^ -

'Thomson and pearson, as it quickly became apparent, had misjudged the whole ...

situatim. The company, including Noble, was in no way prepared to deal with any

committee elected at the instigation of the IWA. MuPohey had not been l u l l ~ d into

accepting Thomson's bland assurances regaraing the ,possibility of an arnicabk-settlement : '

a.

- -

on &e.same terms as Comox Logging. No doubt with some assistance from Morgan, who . '

apparently remained nearby in Campbell River throughout these events,68 Mulroney

drafted a statement which he delivered to'an 18 May general meetiniaitended by 192 of

291 employees. In it he charged the company with holding back$SO per man, or $15,000

in cost of living bonus money, ~ ih i l e making repairs all over the t~&vade taxes. He

accused Noble with being hired explicitly to keep the union out of the Menzies Bay -

1.

operation. The 6 March agreement, he charged, was never formally ratified but was merely

a mamo of agreement to be followed by a signed contract. Even then, the company took L .

four days to draft' their condiribns which were designed to have €Re employees sign +way

thsir rights to outside assistance in bargaining. Since 6 March, the company had adopted a - ,b

domineering attitude tb the Safety Ccimmittee culminating in Daly's use of Provincial Police o

intimidation of the crew, to thwart a second attempt on 24 April to have a conciliator

committee and would cooperate in any application for a bonus. The employees' committee

appointed ta review grievances. To top it all off, by 13 May the company- had managed to . , lay off .the last of six employees signatory to that memo of agreement.

This harangue was followed by a resolution, gassed by a vote of 185 to 6, declaring

the 6 March agreement null and void and resolving to forward to the company a draft i * -

agreement based on the Cornox Logging agreement. This was to be accompahied with a . ' 5*

request that company officials meee with the elected bargaining agency of the employees by

29 M& and pay the appropriate cost of Living bonus for May allowed under federal orders. 6'

\ ' 0

would result.in application to the Minister of Labour for .a Conciliation * .4

hear the dispute, and to the RWLB regarding the bonus.69 L

Meanwhile, Thomson, now busy at B.C. Plywood, was replaced by J.T. Place in .:

/-

response to Mulrowy's application of 28 May .for a commissioner to investigate the

company's .failure to negotiate. B.H. Goult, Secretary-Registrar of the ICA Act, ;was

appointed to accompany Place to Menzies Bay. On 30 ~ a $ Mulroney, wh6m managing

director S.G. ~ m h h had given until that date to retract his 18 May aci.usations, was \

dismissed for &ing statements demmental to the company. Mulroney complained to - 1;

Pearson that his dismissal resuned from his attempts to organke the employees. Pearson

supponed the company's right to fm under Section Eight of the ICA Act for "pop& and '

sufficient cause.''70 I

@.

P

Place and Goult arrived at Menries Bay on 5 June and ith members of the

employees' committee and with Noble ma Ddy. M y with the committee

as it was then constituted, which still included~Mulroneyas a member. To placate Daly, the #

officials, after studying the 18 May meeting minutes, decided that thet'election of brgaining x \

represenptives was improper, not haying been con&cted by secret ballot, though nothing

in the Act stipulaied how such represeQtatives were to be e l ~ t e d .

Daly gave assurances the company would negotiate with a properly electea

agreed to yet another ballot but wanted Mulroney's dismissal made part of the dispute as

well. -'The commissioner would allow only those matters set forth in the originalw- - e B

application. A meeting of employe as set for $June. Place and Goult a&eded to the . . T si

committee's wisg for a saxtinee:, but then granted a similar privilege to the company.

When th~.co&ttee asked -to have two members address the meeting for five'rninutes each, e

Y . . the D e p m n t . . officials granted the sameynvllege - to the'company. Noble was appointed **

, both yrutineer and speaker, though the company - .- assured Place nb othe;officers would be ..< +

- present. According *to Nigel Morgan's officihl statement to the'~e~artme.nt regarding

ensuing events, Place and Goult permitted five company officials to sit in on tfie meeting. 9'

3 -. . - Moreover, without any apparent good reason, the total number of employees deemed

eligible to vote was based on the payroll as of the 18 May meeting. The Lurnbe . . r Worker

charged jhjs was a deli berate p1oyr;by department officials who admitted prior to the meeting 1

a majority would be unlikely on that bask Indeed, of these 293 men, 44 had left camp, no

doubt raising some concerns amongst employees whether they could poll the requisite 147 9

needed to uphold the existing committee.71

Pla& and Goult, in their attempt to accommQdate Noble and Daly, had made it 6

exnemely difficult for the employees to cooperate with the so-called conciliation process. a - k-*

~ulroney 'was the employees' fmt designated speaker. He objected to the meeting being

called, to the manipulation of the voting list and the refusal to make 6 s dismissal part of the

dispute. He quickly put a motion calling for the men to quit work for 24 hours in protest. of - -

tlie actions of the company k d government, and to call in the IWAm assist in taking a vote , k

--

a at a meeting conducted by the union. Place, acting as chair, -ruled Mulroney out-of,order.

. . The motion was put again by union member Elliot and carried in a standmg vote.. Morgan - contended the vote was 283 to 16. Goult, in his report to the federal Department of

Labour, indicated there was &me confusion among the men as t what they were vuting 'L on. Neverthqless, he agreed in hissreport with Morgan, that the men ignored Daly's

rsquesrs to return to work the next day. Daly thereupon closed the coo&ouse on 10 Jund - and paid off the wrtire crew, most of whom dqersed. Seventy married men who were

w+ '-5

-90- 0

@=-,

resident in camp returned to work on the recommendation of the union, and on the basis of c,

, 1

6 G '2 no discrimination for any actions taken.n

4 - BSW's Menzies Bay camps were no tm&l to their overall operation. It was easy

- for them to dispense with an uncooperative crew, even given a labour shortage, as long as

,

their west coast camps remained unaffected. The attitude of Noble, Daly and Smith had

provoked enough loggers to choose the habitual protest opt ion4own- the road to the next

job-to undermine the union's position prior to the 8 June vote. After Thornson's

conciliatory attempts to establish the basis of a local, non-union settlement had failed, P

department officials dropped all pretense of fairness, making any self-respecting settlement * c+ ' - - -

next to impossible for the employees. The role of the state in this dispute is succinctly

summed up in the line from the 1942 departmental report: "Due to.the fact that there was

no ratification of. the bargaining committee by the employees, further negotiation was

irnp0ssible."~3 P b

In response, various IWA locals sent resolutions t~ Premier Hart protesting the role

of Place and Goult, a new tactic followed up by personal letters to BC's recently-installed

Coalition fiom citizens Nigel Morgan and Ernie Dalskog. ~ebuested by Hart to deal wfih

the IWA correspondence, Pearson replied to the Premier: "If you have no objection, I shall a

. . just let the matterbeas it is. These people know very well that the conduct of their officials

- at Menzies Bay was disgr&ful and they are only trying to cover themselves up by these

resolutions. They are an organization that love to be worrying people." art, of course, a .

had no objection.74 Whether he could stop worrylng remained to be seen.

JY

In its quest for legitimacy during the first three years of the war, the IWA

encountered a difficult and hicky web of opposition to the simple objective of slgned union

agreements on basic wages and con&tions. Toward the end of 1942, another branch of the

- state, the couns, was used both by the IWA and a major employer, to test the ICA Act with ..

: .. 0

e

,.- --

-91- ,

/

respect to the rights of trade unions as bargaining agents. In both instances, the TWA

Qltimately ended up the loser. In oqe, however, the Red Band Shingle case, thd union put

% c

a significant dent in the armour of the open shop. -

The first case grew OW of a dispute involving Canadian Western Lumber, the third 0 ,

of the big Wee timber holding fums in the province along with MacMillanz&d BSW: In, L

addition to its giant integrated lumber, plywood, shingle and sash and door operation at

Fraser Mills, CWL owned the Cornox Logging and Railway Company, a tugboat company a .

and various mail lumber yafds on the prairies. Owned and controkd by a combination of, -+ \

. English and Canadian capital, its directors interlocking with somk of the largest financial 1 .

'3- institutions, mining, insurance and retail companies in the CWL was and always

a

had been a worthy opponent of the Communist @arty and lumber workers' organizations. , . ..

The importme to the coast fqrest economy of the Fraser Mills operation, which ' ' ,

I

employed over 1600 people, and ~ e m o r i e s of the successful 193 1 workers unity League . - .

strike in which Ptitchett had played a key role, made ita,prime target during the IWA drive

of 1941-42 At Fraser Mills, according to Jerry L.embcke,'fwo leadership factions vied for

contro1,of the workers-a conservative "old Timers" group with links to the IWA white

61oc in Portland, Oregon, and the leadership of New Westrninster local 1-357 loyal to , -

Dismct 0ne.j6 At a union meeting on 10 August, attenddby 573 employees, 568 voted

in favour of a proposed agreement. As Pritchett abnitted, this number fell sho? of that / a

,3

9

reqdired for any action to be taken with regard to negotiation or con~i l ia t ion .~~ Two weeks . X

later, the turn out was bitter and by a vote of 876 to 3 a proposed working agreement was , ,

again Hdoped and an IWA committee of six, including Pritchett and Jack Greenall,IWA -G,

Irtternatimal Board memkr, was elected.78 -.

In the past, company - management, - headed by.H.J. Mackin, had followed a policy a

-4

of divide and rule by taking applications from indwidual groups of workers for wage B

increases to the RWLB. On 10 September, 400 employees temporarily refused to come in

ro work in prorest ag&sr this procedure. The company agreed to a blanket application for -

the entire crew, which was approved by the RWLB a week later in the form of a five-cent - 0 ," increase with a five-cent premium for night shift for all those not in the skilled labour

- . f

category.79

Judging from the secret report of a federal labour spy on an IWA rally held at New

Westminster's Queen's Park arena on 4 0&0ber, this successful "protest" or strike action .

consolidated the pdsition of local 1-357. The fact that 800 Fraser Mills employees attend& i .

a largely political meeting outside of work indicated a deepening of support for the union. C - Headline speakers included John Stanton, who spoke on the rights of labpur in the United

States, and Colin Cameron, who attacked the ICA Act as a major stumbling block in labour

Priichett, outlined the new situation at Fraser Mills. Negotiations for an

agreement had reached a'deadlock over th-e company's challenge to the legitimacy of the

bagaining committee selected in August. The union had agreed to a company proposal that

the depPartment of ~ab&r conduct another ballot Gtifying the Committee, but balked when - i

Mackin had insisted, no doubt with the dissi8ent :'Old Timers" faction in mind, that ,. . . %%-.

nominations to the committee be reopened as well. The spy also reported the intelligence - --

that District One, after consulting with provincial 'officials, was in the process of

prosecuting CWL under the ICA Act, for refusing to negotiate with the elected - i

'Y 2'

committee.80

The court hearings proceeded in late October. Union lawyer Stqnton, in order to *

counter cornpky objections to the legality pf the actual ballot and the electidn of non- %~ .

employees to h e committee; called the provincial Deputy Minister of Labour, Adam Bell, -

as a witness. Bell testifieb that the deparirnent did not require any special form of ballot a a

and that employees were free to elect whomever they wished to represent them. CWL >

pe3onnel manager, under Stanton's questioning, reported that CWL employed no more .

than 1677, of whom 43 were in a supervisory capacity and thus were not eligible to vote.

Eight h u n h d and seventy-six thus was a cl& majority.

a The company applied for dismissal of the union charges on the grounds that it was

a

* still willing to negotiate, but that the ern&oyee cmrnitree was elected improperly.

Ympany counsel argued that only 494 of,the ballots cast were valid in the election of the - 0

committee;*the rest were spoiled for any of several technical reasons. Stanton argued

correctly that the Act required n o k t ballotat all and that such a vote had been held only. r

as a foml i ty . The official election of the committee, he posifed, was accomplished 5 -

$rough a show of hands pryeding f ie secret vote.81 In hi6 d&sion jn early November,

the judge dismissed the union's chgges on the grounds that the-eompany had still, in fact,

been negotiating with the committee regarding its composition and legitimacy, while it was

the erhployees who had broken off talks. . .

In January 1943, local 1-357 tried again to brganize a vote to elect a bargaining

committee. Pearson objected on grounds that, since the IWA had no status representing the

employees, such a meeting had fo be organized by the employees themselves. He tried. to - , -&fy Pritchett by suggesting he wait uhtil after the next legislative sitting when

%

9 4

expected amendments to the ICA Act would make it easier to determine whether or not a

dispute existed.82

The second case brought before the courts in 1942 invoIving thk IWA was initiated

by Bloedet Srewan and Welch. With shingle &lls at Port Albemi (12 machines) and.

Bunaby (24 machines), BSW was the biggest shingk producer in the proence at the start

of the war. 1ts larger Red Band Shingle Mill, on the North Arm of the'easer River just

ac70ss the boundary fmrn ~ a n c o u v k , operated normally at one and one-halfshifts, cutting

up to 25 million feet c$ red cedar logs annually; out of a total provincial cedar shingle Xi

utilization of 300 million feet83 i.

- h e economic life of a shingle s a w e r or packer was precarious at best. Most were

I I

paid on a piece rate basis which fostered an individualistic outlook to work. Take home

pay depended on the qudiry of the w d , efficiency of the worker and the reliability of the .

machinery, more than on the collective effort of the workers to win decent wage increases. -

Maintenance and preparation was usually done without pay. Moreover, the 80 percent of

industry production normally exported to the united ~ i a t e s was under a quota system with u

heavy duties put on any shingles exceeding the quota. Thus mills were subjept to frequent - \ - - -

curtailment or closure. Employers foimd Chinese iabour,'bften einplbyed through the

"Tyee" system, well 'suited to the relations of production prevailing jn this industry. The ti

* v high proportion of Chinest in the shingle mills presented a major challenge to IWA .

YV

organizers. Only in 1944 with the employment of Ghineseorganizers and publication of a . . *

Chinese language bulletin, did the union begin lo make significant inroads generally into a

this s e ~ t o r ' ~ f ,w0rken.8~ -+ - ~he'f'act that the employees of h e Red I34 Shidgle Mill, on 28 June 1942, elected

t -v %

a-comrnitcee and proposed a uniori agreement covering union recggnition, wages, hours _L

and conditions no doubt caught the industry off guard. After the usual delays, on 13

October the d i~~;e '~roc~eded to a board of arbi& n with Mr. Justice Robertson as chair.

The. employer's representathewas R.V. Stuart, st-secretary-manager of the BCLA.

Earlier in the year, at the instigation of the Association ehployers, he&ad set up Stuart . , /

/ Research Service as an industrial &latiom firm to serve the needs of the f m t industry (see

chapter four below). H e r b Gargrave; CCF MLA, represented the union. Counsel for *

the company immediately challenged the jurisdiction of the board, claiming there was, . .

under the ICA Act, no dispute existing between the company and its employees. BSW

applied for an injunctioh remaining the board from hea&ng the dispufe or making an

award, and asked for a declaption thafno dispute existed, even though several similar

disputes concerning union contracts had previously been heard by boards appointed under

Thae .> was little chance, indeed, that this board as constituted would actually -

recommend a contract with the W A , a decision which would have been non-binding in any C

event. Why, then, did the company bother to dragthe issue of the board's authority

through the couns? 4n p h , it was a response of ke increasingly more organized

-95- -

I

' s.

employers to the ynion's recently initiated court action against CWL. MOK generally, \

BSW had chosen this opportunity, at the height of the I'UrA's drive for signed union -

*contracts, to challenge Bnd, if possible, deny the right of the union to continue to-make use

of the existing inadequate industrial relations machinery in its campaign to organize the 7 a -

entire coast industry.

BSW's case~ested on three points: 1) that there was no "dispute" as defined in

section two of the Act; 2) that the un?on was aS?hkd party without interest in any dispute .. 4 Z

\ between the company and its ehployees; and 3) section five of the Act ernpdwered the

company to contract with elected representatives-of the majority of its employees but not

with their union since the majority were not members'of the IWA prior to 7 Decepber \

7;b -

1938. - U -- The case, was heard in lower cou* by Mr. Justice &ady, who dismisspi the claim

on 27 October, but skirted the issue of whether union recognition in itself was the basis for 4

a diipu;e under the Act. Instead, he ruled that the inclusion of a for a union - contract, "where there are, as here, many marten set out in the pr,oposed agreement" which '

n

were clearly matters of hspute, would not disentitle the union to the appointment of a

bconciliation commissioner or a board of arbitration. He left it for the actual board to rule -

whether under the Act the employees we? entitled to a ~ n i o n a g r m m e n t . ~ ~ . -4

7' BSW was not satisfied. It wanted a decisive ruling t &we as a precedent on the P

issue of whether a disagreement on union recognition constituted in and of itself a dispute.

It tdok the matter to the Court of Appeal of British Columbia where it received a definitive,

though not unahnous, dismissal of its claim for an injunction.,

The Chief Justice of.British Columbia, D.A. McDonald, in his dissenting opinion,

produced an amazing subversion of historical reality in deciding in favour of $e company.

McDonald contradicted Coady by agreeiig with the company that the only matter hadispute -

was union recognition. His opinion that, in this case, union recognition was not a dispute, a .

was based on what was undoubtedly a deliberate misconstruing of the events surrounding .

the passage of the 1937 Act and its 1938 amendment. He argued that& original 1937 Act I -

permitted alJ employees to bargain through duly e~eetedk~resentatives~either employ&& 1 D

, trade union officials. The 1938 amendment, according to his v e r s i o ~ d ,

/ i

term- of the 1937 Act by restricting the right to bargain through a trade ion to those ,!

employees already organized at the time of its passage. Of course, irj reality, the 1937 Act. m

made no provision for tradd unions

1 %

lobbying from organized labour, countered by strenuous intervention from the indust- I

(see chapter one above), the 1938 compromise amendment broadened the scope o t section 1 t

five by permitting trade unions brganiied prior to 7 December, to act as bargaining a&nts. <

McDonald ruled that since Red &d employees were not organized prior to 7 Deoijrnber a

/

1938, under the Act "there is no declaration that it shall be wful to conduct such ts k JT

bargaining through the officers of a trade union." Normally, if something is not lawpl, it 9 , a

can be construed to be against the I&, and that is the strict interpretation ~ c ~ o n d d

intended, based on his notion that the 1938 amendment took away-$ pre-existing right:-

4 Further, he found, that it was not lawful either, for employees or their elected t .

representatives, to bagain with their employe? "with a view to forcing't~im to make an Z

agreement" with a tra+ union. Finally, no such alleged right of employees to so force their -

\

employer could be the basis of a dispute under the A ~ t . 8 ~ .

0

McDonald was supported in his reasons by Mr. Justice-M~Quarrie.~~ The majarity 1

- of the Appeal Colin, howeier, fdllowed the reasoning of Justice 6 . ~ . 09Hallora" and l

future Chief Justice Gordon ploan. Sloan's logic was quite simpie and flawless. He, as * 9. did ~ ' ~ a l l o r g n , drew a sh& and important distinction in the wo ing of iection five .

1. a r

betwee; the meaning of "bqgaining" as negotiating, and ''to baigaiq7' as in to contract.

employees unorgani2ed prior to December 1938 were .required to 't~onduct

bargaining" through elected ehployee representatives, rather than through a trade union as - - agent, it was bargaining in the sense of negotiating, notcontracting that was intended.

s

Nothing in the !aw prohibited the employees' auly elected bargaining committee from

discussing with a company the desirability of ewering an agreement, or contracting with a , 1'

trade union as a socalled t&rd party. loan concluded his simple statement with the ",I

following argument. It wa;i the privilege and right of employees to belong to a trade union.

%As well, it was lawful for employers to enter an agreement with= such a trade union 4

regardless of wheait:was organized. It followed from these two propositions, that the +?.

refusal of an employer to enter such magreement upoarquest of-his employees was a

matter relating to lthe rights and prhileges of employees, and therefor* constituted a dispute . /

hnder sec6on two of t h e * A ~ t . ~ ~ J'

li

O'Halloren took the argumeqt a step further. In the case of the+Red Band Shingle

Mill, where it was conceded that a majority of employees had voted for the union to .--

d

represent them as party to an agreement, the judgeqound that the interest of the employees D

was the5same bs the interest of the union. The union qould therefore not be construed as

Ang a third party. Rather, the union was more appropriately described as the "collective *

or composite alter egaof the employees." Even if the definition of the term bargain wete i * . open to interpretations different than his and Sloan's, legal precedent provided that that - I

interpretation should stand which was consistent with the smooth worlpifik e f the system 1 :

regulated' by statute, and that i~terpretation rejected which would lead to uncertainty, , '1

friction or confusion. As well, any interpre&ion of section five had to be subordinated

I I its cause and necessity, and to that which was "consonant to reason and good discretion." I

-rfhe cause and necessity of the statute was the maintenance of industrial peace. Fqther, it 1 s ,

I I ' was consonant to reason and bscre'tion that employees should form unions and such';

I "

:unions should contract with employers on their behalf. ''In my view," he concluded, -

hirect contradiction of the chibf justice andthe posi;ion of BSW, "the statute does not i I

I

prevent the Company entering into the proposed contract with the Uriion." :It was,

however. he added, up to thg board to decide what course to recommehd in &s re@d.gO I I

! i -.,

- .

Though i t had littie ir&nediate,irnpact, the historical importance

" . /OTHa1loren decision should &$ be overlooked. BAS a statement from the 1

body in the province more or Jess endorsing the legitimacy of union demands for full I

-7,

collective bdgaining rights and pointedly demonstrating the ambiguous and confusing a .

0 9 .

nanm of the ICA Act and its discriminatory treatment of industrial unions, it served to help

undermine the authority 07 the existing industrial relatiws law in the province. Moreover. - the CMA journal, JndugtrmL C a u , considered the Briti&Columbia decishn a matter of

1.. &msiderabl=e importance with respect to dorni on labour statute. *is was particularly so,

<

the CMA industriai relations department noted, since it had fiequenh been brgued before Y,, federal conciliation boards and the courts that the question of union recog ition was not a

k 9 j 1 i

d(spute as defined in tl/e ID1 Act. However, the dissenting opinions@he Chief Justice

d' -.

* I d Justice McQuarrie gave the editor hope for a different dec ion when the matter was -. !

, d{cided'defi@tively wit respect jo the federal law.'! b arbitration in the'Red Band Shingle case reconvened

the company should enter an agreement with the

I union. As evidence o the increasing integration of the industrial relations battle being I

't, waged in the coastal f rest industry, ihe arguments proposed by the two panies'were P *

almost identical to those presented the following month to a similar bo&d alw composd of I i

R.V. Stuart and ~ a r ~ r a i e , with Dean J.N. Finlayson as chair, hearkg a dispute between

Mohawk Lumber and locfl 1-357.g2 The u ~ i o n argued in both instances thawecognition

would enhance the dignity oy labour, allow employees to bargain more effectively without

, fear of repri al, and create better more harmonious industrial relations. In both instances . 4 \ the companyicountered by noting that members of the employees cornminee were already

union members who had access to union assistance and had, up to &en, bargained with the

company amicabIy and without fear of consequences. Because of the constant fluctuation -I

J .

of the workforce, the company counsels argued disingenuously, at some future time a new

majority of employees might favour bargaining through an employees committee, forcing

the company, in order to comply with section fivesf the Act, to commit a breach of any

contract signed with the union.

\ In both the Red Band and Moha$k decisions the majority of the board accepted the . -

\

company objections to the union's case bnd cited section five of the Act in support of its l,

-

refusal to recommend a union agreement. I, In spite of the strong language of the Sloan and

O'Hallomn findings Robertson, in the Red Band case, found that there was "no express f'

section in the Act providing with whom the ,Company shall enter into a ~bntract.,~ He i

continued, "the policy of the Act seems to have left the Company untrammeled in this "

respect." He and Stuart were of the opinion that the employees, had nat shown

sufficient reasons why the company should enter into a contract with the union.93

Indeed, by the end of 1942 it 'had become apparent that provincial~boards of

arbitration, particularly where the IWA was concerned, would rarely, if ever, find any Y-

reason to recommend a signed union agreement in the absence of legislation so directing it.

This failure of the state's industrial relations machinery to resolve recognition disputes to *

the satisfaction of both parties has been commented-on recently by two histbrians with

respect to the federal ID1 Act and its compulsory conciliation provisions. In part, as Laurel -

f l -

MacDowell has argued, the conciliation process failed because "the very existence of one of I +

the parties was not an issue for which there was a middle ground." In regard to federal s

conciliation boards, which in their adjudicative capacity were identical to British Columbia . -

boards of arbitration, Jeremy Webber notes that "without the aid o~standards declared by

an authoritative body outside the bargaining relationship, ,it was difficult for boards to

develop stable, well-accepted principles on which to base their awards.'94 In British ,

Columbia, the peculiarities of the ICA Act, no doubt, contributed to the Canadian "malaise" 0

of which Webber speaks.

No argumentt& statement of principles uttered before a board could be effective in

Ihs absence of a legislative framework ernbodyi& the principles of union bargaining rights.

A Iaw which made i t clear that if an agreement were to be, signed3 would have to be a - unmn agreement. would give the IWA a fighting chanq4o Sse its organizational efforts and

1 scwnomic muscle in certain smtegic operations to p u ~ an end to the open shop in the coast

lumber industry. In August 1942, the union stepped up its education campaign among the

rank-and-file by holding areferendum ballot in all camps and mills where it had union

representation. As a step, ostensibly, to bring about harmonious industrial relations and an

:increase in war production through the establishment of sound collective bargaining

practices, employees were asked to endorse.the IWA as sole bargaining agent and to f

request the Department of Labour to bring in legislati6n providing for compulsory union

recognition and employer deduction of union dues in operations with a majority of union

+ support. In November, 103 delegates from 67 camps and mills assembled in an emergency

conference at Nanaimo where they voted to support a call for a Canadian "Wagner Act" as a

means fo step up Canada's war effort.95 A

At their annual convention in January 1943, District One delegates seconded their

leaders' call for a labour Bill of Rights. With delegates from 25 British Columbia camps - -

and inills either in the midst of, or a b u t to eqter negotiations, the convention endorsed the --

demand to amend the ICA Act to provide for compulsory collective bargaining wiih the

organization of the workers' 'own choice, and for the proper machinery to establish that I

choice. Specifically the convention demanded elimination of c.miliation, speeding up of ; e

arbitration, the outlawing of company unions, and severe penalties for employers engagiag

in unfair labour practices.96 These demands clearly and explicitly addressed the frustration

experienced,by the TWA over the previous two years at the hands of the provincial labour

bureaucracy, working in conjunction with anti-union operators. During the ensuing

months, the union would become part of a much broader labour and politicah,ovement in

suppon of reform of the counuy's labour law, and would encounter much more emphatic

and organized employer opposition, as ft moved toward the end of the open shop era.

The R w the Chatlottes: The-End of the S h ~ p r

The final battle over the open shop was waged in the logging camps of the Queen

Charlotte Islands, long targeted by the IWA as a key point in its o~ganizing drive. Though

the actual dispute involved only three operators, and fell under federal jurisdiction as

involving a vhr industry, in fact, it became the final test of strength.ktween the combined

might of the province's forest hdustry and the IWA over the issue of industry-wide union - I

recognition under the ICA Act. While largely ignored by writers of federal industrial

relations history during this period, the British Columbia events of 1943 were an ih tegd I

part of Canadian labour's struggle for a national "labour code."'

I si. 6 -

When the IWA began its drive for signed agreements on the Queen Charlotte I

Islands in 194 1, there were four companies with nine camps employing between 600 and

800 men involved: J.R. Morgan, KelIey Logging, Pacific Mills and A.P. Allison Logging. 'f--

companies logged the hemlock, spruce, balsam and cedar forests mainly to supply the 0

raw material for the pulp and paper operations of the Powell River Company, at Powell

River, and Pacific Mills at Ocean Ealls.2 Only 66 million of the 228 million feet of logs, -2 /

produced were high grade spruce suitable for aircraft. The lower grades of spruce were

utilized in pulp production. Throughout the war, Pacific Mills' camp on 'the Queen

Charlotte Islands produced mainly for its pulp and paper operation. J.R. Morgan also

p d u i e d h e m l ~ k and low grade spruce for Pacific Mills and delivered its high grade

spruce to Sitka Spruce Lumber Company in Vancouver for airplane lumber. Powell River

Pulp and Paper, as i t was organized' during the war, could not continue its neiysprint

operation without the Queen Charlotte sp&e supply. Kelley Logging, a wholly-owned

subsidiary of Powell River, sold its entire cut to the pulp and paper company. Another

Powell River subsidmry, Kelley Spruce, cut. the high grade spruc6 for the Vancouver

market, and then after 1941, for the British Timber Control. The bulk of fie Kelley 0

i t , .- Logging output was utilized at Powell River.3 .

During April of 1942, at the request of the British government, two officials of the '

U 9

provincial Department of Labur , were sent to make an investigation of the conditions in

the airplane spruce logging industry on the Queen Charlotte Islands, and of the reasons for

the serious manpower shortage there. It was the general consensus of opinion (amongst

the 80 percent of Queen Charlotte Islands loggers contacted by the provincial investigators

'-- Whisker and Pearce) that the best stands of airplane spruce were heId by non-prcxiucing

timber holders, forcing the present operations to jump from one small claim to another.

~ & & v e r , most loggers reported that the existing logging companies were more concerned

with the production of pulp than of spruce lumber. 'Pacific Mills had early in 1942 closed 8

one of its two Queen Charlotte Islands camps and was preparing to mbve it to a fir and. P

pulpwood operation on the mainland where there was rio aero s p r u ~ e . ~ e

In June 1942, as a result of a conference between the British Ministry of Aircraft

Production and representatives from the ~ a n a d i a n Timber Control to discuss an

insufficiency in the supplies of spruce, a Canadian Crown company known as A'ero Timber -- -

Products Limited was established for the sole purpose of increasing the ou,tput of the so-

called sitka spruce 10gs.~ Sitka spruce, utilized in the famous "~osquito" fighter planes, 0

combined lightness and strength, making it, in many respects,. better than any metal or alloy

for axplane construction. It was better able to absorb anti-aircraft fire and it was easy on

fuel. Furthermore, construction was rapid and repair ~ i r n p l e . ~ Aero Timber immediately

acquired most of the assets and operation of Allison Logging Company as a production

base. A Board of Directors was set up from among leading coast ldgging executives:

Managmg Director R.J. Filberg was Vice President of Comox Logging and Railway; Vice

President was J.H. McDonald of 3.C. Manufacturing Company Limited; S.G. Smith was

Manager of BSW; and George O'Brien was President of O'Brien Logging Company

Limited and Chairman of the Board of the BCLA, Also on the Board was Phil Wilson of

I -

B

-103- i

- 5 7

Merrill, Ring and Wilson, Ross Pendleton of APL and Percy Sills of Spruce Products

Limited of Victoria. At its June general meeting, b e BCLA agreed to help with Aero

Timber's re6uest for assistance in acquiring more men and equipment tq beef up its new

spruce ~pera t ion .~ I

During the 1941 -42 period, not only the existing log requirements of the pulp inilk,

but also a critical shopge of l a b u r meant that Queen Charlotte Islands logging operations

had remained predominantly pulpwood operatiqns. From Aero ~imber ' s point bf view,

crucial ta the reorganization of production was first the creation of a greater supbly of -

logging labour - than had traditionally been available on the Queen Charlotte Islands under

the normally unatkctive working and living conditions there. Any attempt to resolve this

problem, however, would ultimately involve the IWA, the only labour organization in the I

field with a claim to represent the loggers in the Islands' camps.

Despite an historic wdge. differential in favour of the isolated camps on the Queen

Charlottes, loggers preferred working in -lower coast and Vancouver Island fir camps.

Travel time from Vancouver to thk Queen Charlotte Islands was three to four days. Heavy

'rains and dense underbrush maae the'work more difficult, as did the heavier gear and

rigging needed to log the huge timber. There was no hospital or medical services available, 0

little fresh food, and, due to th6 isol~(im,'no - . . entertainment or social life outside the camps.

Added to these negative factors: according to an IWA brief, was the unusually rough 1

terrain, poor communications with the outside via mail and radio, and lengthy and

some times hazardous bavel periods to work each shift by boat. In order to attract loggers

to the Queen Charlotte Islands, Department of Labour investigators Whisker and Pearce w

recomme.nded a wage at least one dollar per day higher than in the best fir camps. They

aIso recommended fare rebates for workers who stayed on the job, and proper refrigeration

on boats cpnying perishable food to camps. whisker. and Pearce believed that the

on pulpwood production might be undermining government efforts to

Queen Charlottes on patriotic grounds. They suggested further

+. . 6

- 104- 4

0 investigation of this issue. The investigators also concurred with a feeling amongst

d

employees that public'statements regarding troubled labour negotiations wae making it z*

difficult to induce new men to come to the Queen Charlotte Islands camps. They

recommended steps be taken to end this publicity.* I,

This provincial report was filed only a few days after a report by federal Department 4

of LaGur inve4tigator, R.G. clemknts, on the unwillingness of idle loggers in Vancouver

to acceit employment in camps, especially those on the Queen Chafloaes. Clements found

that between 5W and 1000 loggers were cprently in Vancouver seeking jobs in other war k'

industries. The personnel manager for Pacific Mills, according to Clements, laid most of .i

,

the blame on the federal order preventing operators from boosting wageie9 Despite the fact

'that pulp timber sold for two or three dollars below the price for Douglas fu, wage rates at

Queen Charlottegulpwood camps had almost always been pegged higher than at the most

profitable fir camps on the coast. Though a rigging slinger and a choker, to cite only two * .

" cases, made 65 centsand 75 cents more each day than they would have in the highest

paying fir camps, a serious labour shoftage still persisted on the Queen Charlotte Islands .

through 1941.1•‹ er *il Pamotism aside, the dismal conditions on the Queen Charlottes and the inability of

- the operators to hold &ews for any length of time was, of clourse, equally disturbihg to the

IWA from the point of view of organizing. During 1941 hard work toward negotiating a

collective agreement was undermined by fluctuation and employer intransigence. That

summer a conference of representatives from each camp was held, and a draft agreement,

ratified by the membership, was proposed as the basis for negotiation in each camp. At

A.P. Allison's, the most difficult of the Queen Charlotte Islands operators to crack in the

union's estimation, 60 employees, including the staunchest union men; left camp when

they ehcountcrg resistance to their demands. From that pint.on, &ti1 the Aero Timber -

takeover, Ailison managed to keep the IWA at bay. Allison's success in maintaining the

1 P

open shop wis likely one reason why it was targeted by ~ilberg'%d the BCLA directors

for the takeover by Aero.ll

At Kelley's opewtion, everything was set to roll wheh nine of the best union men

camp packed up for Vancouver, leaving it to the Di.r;trict officers to star^ the process over I .

again;*2 compounding the problem of fluctuating crqps, once it became kfiown that the 5 ' ,

- union was pressing for negotiations the operators clamped down on hghts previously

enjoyed by the union to hold camp meetings, consult with employees and have dues 3

checked.off monthly. From October until the end of 1941, union officials tried in vain , I=%

through the westem Representative of the federal Department of Labour, F.E. Harrison, to

initiate negotiationi with Kelley and Pacific Milk. Both refused to meet. In Jarkary 1942, . - 2 '

L

Hamson arranged a meeting between officials of alldfour'cornpanies with Prirtchett and

Morgan in order to discus< the unichys p r o p o s a l ~ a union agreement, productivity

committee, trqsportation costs, wage tqnus for staying the season, guaranteed day rates - <

for falling crews, and overtime rates, After nearly a month had elapsed, the commies by- '

passed, the uniorr and circulated their employees directly with their draft of a'proposed

agreement. After several more meetings with Department of Labur officials, the union - -

reluctantly agreed to drop union recognition in,return for an employee agreement giving the '

employees the right to elect bargaining representatives at large, A subsequent Department '

b7 Labouidraft agreement was then submitted to the employees by the department and was

rejected by all camps but ~1lison's . l~

- On 15 April, District One held a remarkable conference at the Hael Georgia in

Vancouver to discuss the Queen Charlotte Islands situation. In attcndanee were delegates

from other mde unions, "cultural and fratcmal groups," provincial MLAs and members of

theh i ted Church of Canada. Pearson characteristically declined the courtesy, explaining

to Hm that, "In view of the fact that I am not very sympathetic with this orgaiGzation I

have not replied as the invitation did not actually ask for a reply." The Cabour Minisrer's

penchant for legalism clearly extended to the details of etiquene. l4

Having done its best to cultivate public opinion on the Charlottes question. in May,

a union strike vote in all four ~ u & n Chailone Islands operahons was approved 429 to 24. -

That vote sparked a meeting in early June held by Elliott ~ittle,'the Director of National

~elechve Service and Timber Controller A.S. Nicholson, with union and management I '..

0

representatives, as well as CCL and CCF officials, in0an effort to resolve @e @ $ ~ t e . ~ ~

The involvekent of Little oqthe-NSS at this stage is notable. Little was a "dollar-a-year" - man drafted into the war effm h m the pulp and pa& industry. He was General ~ a n a ~ e ;

of Anglo-Caa&an Pulp and Paper Mills and the Gaspesia SuIphite Company, and an

executive member of .theLCmadim Pulp and Paper Association. *His experience in - _ #

,-

industrial relations was formed in a capital intensive industry where more or less

harmonious labour relations had prevailed since the reorganization of the conservative pulp * -- *

unions +in eastern Canada in 1933.16 Even in British Columbia, the International -

Brotherhood of Paper Make and the International Brotherhood of Pulp, Sulphite and ,.

Paper Mill workers, under moderate leadership, had established good relations with the - -

pulp companies by the early thirties,a situation which persisted right through the forties P

and fiftigs.I7 Unlike many of his fellowmembers in the Canadian Manufacturers'

Association, Little was a staunch advpcate of 'improved indusrrial relations as a meanssto

producing greater indusmal efficiency. That meant, he told the CMA annual general A \

C meeting on 8 June 1942, recognition of deserving and responsible unions, collective

bargaining in good faith, and plant production committees to utilize theresourcefulness and a

- ingenuity of the man on the machine.18 The NSS, from its inception, had taken on itself *

the job of promoting the development of improved labour relations to further Canada's war

effon-lg , .,

&- ' As a result of Linle's inm-vention in the Queen Charlotte Islands dispute,. five . . ,gievances- were at least temporarily rksolved through the establishment of an

1 ? 3

-&ii$o~/employee commitfee, a fare rebate plan, prop& refrigeration of f&d, improved >

medical mmnent in camp, airplane transport to Vancouver in case of injury, and air .. ,

delivery of haif. While he fell far shurt' of mediating a collective agreement satisfactory to - the W A , Little produced the first resolution of any sort since the union's propmds of the

7

previous summer. Yet these were largely agreements on employee grievances uncovered A,

\ by tfw provincial investigators earlier that spring and had little to do with any of thebnio:

issues put forward by the W A . - Following the grievance meeting with Little and ' -

NichoIson, the I W A applied to the federal government for the appointment of a conciliation - 1

board to deal with the main issue of union recognition and other matters of minor -

3 I

importance. Not until September was a panel selected, and it was January 1943 before 3

sittings of the board got underway. ' In one of the eHIy sessions in February, counsel f i r - .

J.R. Morgan alleged that Little had told him during the June 1942 meeting in Vancouver, in a-

the presence of CCL officials, that he woad never ask the company to enter an agreement

with the IWA.20

Although Little's intervention had no direct benefit for the union, it did laythe

grobndwork for the reorganization of producxion by Aero Timber-during the last half of

1942. And that development &d, in fact, affect the prospects of the I T ~ A on the Queen

Charlotte Islands. In Ocfober.j942, Aem Timber signed a memo of agreement with

Kelley, J.R. Morgan and Pacific Mills offering to pay thesk operators's bonus of $10 per. "

t

1OOO board feet for high grade spruce logs, on the condition that they, in turn, payed their ' .

camp employees a bonus of one-third in pcess of theqregular wages after 100 days ,t -

employment, starting 1 O c t o k 1942. On 10 October 1942, the NSS published an ,'

- . advertisement in dl the Vancouver dailies announcing the new bonus offer, free he-way /

transport for three months work. return fare for six months continuous emplbyment, as

. well as a deferment from r n i i i r q service for expeiienced loggers working in aero spruce <

,

Early in 1943 Aero firnber entekd -nen agreements with JbR. Morgan and

Pacific Mills. These'fms undertook to &liver selectively logged Aero Spruce grades to P

Aero Ember or its customers. Kelley Logging did not contract in writing, but from the

time of the agreement with me other two, deliver& its high &de spruce logs in accordance

with the mown company's insmctions. On top of that, by the end of the y s , Aem's own

operations anployed more spruce loggers than all the &her Queen Charlotte Islands camps

c ~ r n b i n e d . ~ gut all was not clear sailing for Aero Timber and its gllied companies. The

issue of union'recognition, soon to be addressed in well publicized hearings of a federal i

ee~ciliarion board, still hung in the balanck, ensuring that conditions on the Islands would

remain uncertah for some time to come.

, The possibility of substahtially increased earnings for Queen Charlotte Islands 0 -.

loggers (some fdlers and buckers. cobld now e&n as much as $32 per day),23 the improved

working conditions iegotiated by Little, andthe employment conditions attached to the"

bonus and fare rebate meated the basis for the IWA to stabilize its organization and -

/

undertake a sustained period of negotiation. Since the hueen Charlotte Islands logging ,

operations were classified as a vital wait industry, industrial relations matters affecting these Q -

companies camemwithin the jurisdiction of the federal Department of Labour, headed by a .. - '-?

newly appointed minister, Humphrey Mitchell. Gorning at a time when ?edederal labour i

relations and wage control ~ d i c i e s were reaching a state o*f crisis; any resolution to the .

Queen Charlotte Islands Bispute would almost automaticaily have to tk worked out in the 3

context of a redefinition offeders policies and procedures with respect to industrial

relations in g e n d . As well, since any settlement at these spruce and pulp operations was

of considerable concern to the major coastal timber operators, t h e issve of union \

d

recognition in rhis crucial war industry would also affect the course of industrial relations -

within the provincial jurisdiction.

By early 1943, a e Queen Charlotte Isiands dispute had been cast onto the laiger "

stage of Canadian politics, at both the federal and provincid levels, as governments

scrambled to respond to intenslfylng industrial unrest in the countryis basic war industries,

and to theconcomitant CCF threat u, *e political hegemony of the Liberal party. At this

juncture a digression is necessary in order properly to situate the IWA fight for recognition

and collective bargaining rights within ti$ broader political context - /

/-i In Ontario, and at the federal leve!, CCF stock amonHade unionists began to soar

"

after the Kirkland Lake gold miners strike of 1941-42 over the issue of union recognition.

. Since June 1940, when it passed PC 2685, the federal government had, in princjple, 5

endorsed collective bargaiqing through duly elected bargaining age&, and the freedom to -

organize in trade unions without employer intimidation or coercion. After December 1940,

Canadian workers had lived under a system of wage corrtrols, as well. What rankled the

- labour movement was the government's zeal in enforcing wage restrictions and its laxness

in its promotion of collective bargaining rights, even in war industries directly under its --

managegent.. Tiis double-barrelled grievance led to outs;oken criticism of the .federal

government by both the TLC and CCL at their fall conventions, and calls for a national . .

labour code and repeal or modification of wage contr0ls.2~ h t h e Kirkland Lake dispute,

the government had expressly ignored both its own official policy and the recomgnendation

of a Department of Labour conciliation board for recognition .of Leal 240 of the

International Union of Mine Mill and Smelter Workers. In m&ng theaward, me board J

--- expressly questioned the appropriateness of trying to settle recognition disputes via the ID1 . .

Act, and suggest& the broad question of collective bargaining be dealt with by parliament =u

or cabinet. The companies did nothing to comply wi$ the award, and the gove&ent.did d

B

nothing to enforce it. The ensuing 1 1-week strike conducted in the dead of winter was lost

by 12 February 1942.z -4

The Kirkland Lake debacle galvanized national labour support for the issue of union '

recognition and product$ unprecedentqd unity of purpose between the two national labour Ls

centrals for legislative reform at their 1942 conventions. More significantly: it pushed the '7

CCL into qmore open and act ik support of,the CCF as the political instrument to effed 1

that ~han~e.26 . b C-

8 - In two federal by-elections immediately following the strike at Kirkland Lqke,

strong labour support helped the CCF candidatks defeat Comervativy leader Meighen in v

So& York, and challenge Liberal candidate and Minister bf iabour Humphrey Mitchell in %

B " ' Welland over his handling o the recent labour dispute. MbcDowell argues that Etfter

* J ,- f

Kirkland Lake, labour and the CCF began to "share commoli political objeches" and . -

cooperate oh an organizational level. n e CCF formed a ~ r a d e Union Committee to

oapitalize on the dissatisfaction of Onrario workers and at its fa11 J942 coivention the CCL

recognized the CCF as labqur's parliamentary repre8entati~e.~~ - I , With this clear political threat from the moderate left, and an election in the offing -

the following year, Ontario Liberal premier Harry Nixon was compelled to act. In the "

midst of the brewing national steel industry dispute over the federal government's wage /

cpntrol policy he took the opportunity tb upstage the King @beds by announcing at the 9

1942 CCL convention hi8 intention to introduce a collective bargaining act.28 The Ontario

Collective Bargaining Aqt, rqodelled on the Wagner Act but with the addition of'a Labour 1

CO& to enforce collectii(e bargaining dghts, duly passed in ~ i r i l 1943. The "dramatic . \

I

8 series" of hearings prece&ng passage of the Act was designed to show the government's 'i

support for the rights of labour. It was too little too late, and Nixon's Liberals went down -

to crushing defeat in the' August election. The CCF, with no members in the previous 3

legislature, formed the official opposition to the new ory government with. 34 members, \

18 of whom were trade unionists.29 - I

At the same 1942 CCL convention that welcomed Nixori's announcement, ! U L

* Qmphrey Mitchell was roundly chastised. King's hopes were dashed that Mitchell, an '

*

old-line craftdonist, might build new Liberal bridges to the trade n n i ~ n move men^^^

Indeed, Mitchell had annoyed King by stalling on a proposed order sough! by both the - 0

TLC and CCL extehding the government's collective bargaining principles P C 2685 to , -

'crown companies such as the ,newly created Aero Timber. Furthermore, following a - a

dispute dith Mitchell, Elliott Little, who .had gained the confidence of labour during his 1 brief tenore, resigned as directdi of the NSS.31 The CCL claimed Little's 16 November 1

i - letter of rksignation had blamed d tche l l for the &alysis of the NSS. The B.C. Lumber

Worker alleged that Little ha$ been pushed out by Mitchell because of his attitude that P

labour must be enlisted as an equal partner, in the w& effort.32 Little's resignation further

damaged the reputation of the King government in the eyes of ~anadian jabour leaders. .In *.

an atiempt to shore up labour support, on 1 December 1942 King intervened+directly in

Mitchell's terrain to effect the passage of Order-in-Council PC 10802 providing for an

extensio$ of the principle of collective bargaining to employees working in crown

As the steel dispute reached a boiling po'int in early 1943, King went over the head i

of his labour minister and became directly involved ban attempt to prevent his reactionary

.cabinet colleagues from "handing over the future of the Country to the CCF."34 The v \ .

Barlow Commission, appointed to resolve an impasse over wages, in its January 1943

re'pon had refused any adjusmnts or to declare steel a "national industry" for purposes of %

wage standardization. Thirteen thousand workers walked out in plants in Ontario and

,Nova Scotia. King immediately, in February 1943, r e f e d the matter to a reconstituted 1 J

r 9

National War Labour Board from which the unpopular Mitchell was relieved of the r,.'

chairmanship. He %as replaced by Justice C.P. McTague. King felt the ~6st ice hi@ a . " - ' I , \

good appreciation of the dangerous link being formed bet wee^ the CIO unions and the i \

CCF. As labour's representative on the three member board McTague appointed a former B

counsel ... to the CCF and the Steelworkers, J.L. &hen, thereby sending a positive signal to 1

m d e union leaders.35 The hWLB was also now empowered tobcondict general enquiries

into labour relations matters.36

In the f ina l analysis, the board decision on the steel case failed to live up to the .

c x p s c t a ~ n s King had raised in the Steelworkers union. But the April 19U announcement

3er its new terms of reference, would conduct a full national inquiry

into l a w rehtioik'and wage conditions, helped mollify the Steelworkers' and CCL \ \

\ leaders. They mticipated thatKing, subject to the same political pressures as the Ontario

Liberals, would soon enact similar collective bargaining legislation at the federal level. he I \\

-

hearings, conducted from April through June 1943, gave labour "a national platform" to

make its case. In August, both majority and minority reports of the NWkBjommission

recommended to the federal government a new labour code to provide for compulsory

collective bargainiqg, though the McTague majority report was deci ,

new "aggressive" industrial uni0ns.3~

In British ~oluAbia , after its msmal siowing in the 1937 election, the CCF pulled .' . .

ilself together under the direction of a new, young and dynamic leader, Harold Winch. As

the depression gave way to the war years in British Columbia, .party fortunes shifted in

accordance with a chang political economy. The reformist "little New Deal" of Duff 1 Panu110 had long since f ed, replaced in the popular mind by the images of the heavy- t

handed treatment meted dut to strikers at ~ l u b b e r Bay, and unemployed dLmonstrators at

the Vancouver Post Offi~e.38 Under the impact of the war economy, the ranks ~f the

unernpioyed shrank, and the trade unions gained new organizational strength. Both

industrial and craft u'nion c e n ~ a l s experienced marked growth, creating a more coherent I

2 political bloc in opposition to the established parties.39 After 1937, Pattullo's tenuous

political coalition of diverse interest groups quickly came u&tuck. is inept handling and

then of the proposed health insurance bill alienated both labour and business

/ ' supon-for different reasons. His legdative attempt to regulate the oil and gas industry,

/ together with a rhetorical commitment to social programmes, further dismayed the business P 1

community and helped revive Tory hopes.40 By the time of the 0ctob;er 1941- election, Q

both opposition parties were gaining strength at the-expense of the Liberals. Pattullo's

middle ground of reform politics, whicb he ha defended firmly against conservative 8' + amckers as the t e s t prev tim against the rise to power of radical governments, was found

to have shrunk considerably.4f.- The 1941 results cost the Liberals 10 seats and reduced I

them to minority status with 21 members. The CCF doublql their representation to 14, and .

for the first time polled +e highest in the populai vote. The Tories rebounded to 12 seats

from eight.42 A movement for a coalition government with roots in the politich confusion a

, ' of the early thirties suddenly revived within both old-line parties t o assume the antidotal . .

, ,

, . f u n ~ ~ i ~ ~ s ~ , r ~ c + s m & a t , ~ a n u l l o ~ s reformism allegedly had served. The coalition D -.. I

\ \

i d & i k l y gained rnlornenturn imdh-qpre text of wartime unity and stability. The die-, ., i \. - \ hard Liberal, Pattullo, resisted, fearing the p e N e n t demise of the Liberal party in British

--%. .. 1

Columbia. His administration was u n c e n h y ~ n i o u s ~ r e ~ l a c e d by a new Coalition

government led by Ljberal John Hart. The CCF, h a h g refused thd offer to coalesce, once \

again formed the official opposition.43 \ \

I '\ , \ \

s The Coalition had the advantage of a rece t election behind it when the

national labour upgurge of 1942-43 hit British Columbia. Nevertheless, a clear danger 6P

signal b a s sent our in November 1942 in a Salmon Arm by-electiob The seat, held for 18 +

years by the old-1,ine parties, fell to the CCF with a doubling of its previous popular vote.44

The government of John Hart was not oblivious, either, to developments in other . '

provinces, where CCF suppon was threatening to topple long-standing politic& regimes.

The new coalition would have to prove itself to an electorate growing increasingly restless

from wartiqe sacrifices, and to a burgeoning labour movement being led-by the militant

CIO union%, the W A , Mime Mill and the Shipyard Workers. The link between labour and

the CCF in British Columbia waS complicated by the strong role of communists in the I

industrial unions. Nevertheless, the government apparently felt that it could not rely on

divisiqns of the left to carry it through the turbulent period of adjustment from wartime to

ps i -war reconstruction.

-1 14- e ?

During the course of the war, union membership in British Columbia rose from

34,000 to nearly 84,000.45 ,As Table 1 demonstrates the number of disputes ihvolving

' time lost in-workirig days in British Columbia industries under both federal and provincial

jurisdictions jumped over ten times between 1939 and 1943:

- .

Furnbg of-Time-lost Dis utes in British Columbia 1939-4346 - : .T Employees Time Lost in .

'DJsDutes - , Affecred 1939 4 822 13803 *

1940 1 204 85 10 b

1941 8 1408 7594 1942 50 18804 35025 . 1943 43 21704 78129

Source: Report of the Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Branch (1943)

As in the rest of Canada, a growing number of disputes involved the issues'of

union recognition and discrimination for union activity. Out of 13'disputes under

provincial jurisdiction involving loss of time commencing-in 1942, at least six, and - A

f probably more, involved a union issue.47 The provincial government could regulate only a .

,

part of the 'industrial+relatioqs picture during these war years, a portion which, 1

nevertheless, included much of the lumber industry where the recognition issue was ~

-..

particularly tugent. Even strll, as it represented the combined interests of capital in British , .

~ o l u d i a , ,the coalitibn could not sit idly by while industrid u'lrest disrupted, to an ever

more alarming extent, the flow of goods and profits in ihe.province. It was clearly time to

bring the superstructure o=f labour law into line with the material reality of labou'r relations

in the prdvince, especially with respect to the Zumber industry. S L

* .

On 12 January 1913, a joint delegarion of seven tkde union centrals 'representing

both TLC and CCL unions submitted a legislative brief to the provincial cabinet ..

recomrnenhng changes to the ICA Act. ' Heading the list of demands was a call for

recognition of unions as legitimate bargaining representatives, irrespective of date of

organillation-collective bargaining with such unions to be made subject to law. Unfair .

labour practices under this proposal would be outlawed explicitly, arbitration of disputes

speeded up, and a labour relations board with labour representation established to

administer the a ~ t . ~ ~

In the spring 1943 legislative session, the Hart government launched-~a broad

programme ,of reform aimed at labour and CCF supporters, and at doubting anti-coalitionist , -

Liberals who feared ,the death of liberalism in the province at the hands of the new

C0alition.~9 Included in the refsrpl package were amendments to both the Workmen's

Compensation Act and the Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Act. The cbntr~versid

section five of the 1937-38-1CA Act was overhauled to provide automatic bargaining

agency status to a trade union where a majority of those employees affected by a dispute ,

were me.mbers. "Trade union" was defined in the Act for the first time as a national or

international organization, or a local chartered brwch of such an organization. Automatic d

recognition on 'the basis of membership applied only to trade' unions. Any other

organization required a majorityevote of employees affected to determine bargaining agency

rights. Moreover, the new bill made it illegal for an employer'to dominate or interfere with

the formation or administration of any employee organization. These provisions went a

long way toward eliminating company unions, and were protested against vehemently by

the CMA md, in particular, the president of Consolidated Mining and Smelting whose

company had a long-standing company union scheme.50 While the 1937 Act had made it L

lawful for employees to bargain collectively with their employer, no definition of collective

bargaining had been provided. Importantly, the 1943 amendment defined collective

bargaining as including negotiation of matters of employment relations for the purposes of

arriving at a settlement. This provision would make it difficult for employers to argue tley m

had fulfilled their legal obligations simply by sitting down at a table with union officials.

Union's could now leptimately argue that bargaining, under the Act, involved the actual

signing of an'agreement; These long sought after rights were, nevertheless, modified by

some other, qndifioning clauses. '

For purposes of certifikation, a member of a trade union meant a person with three I..

months continuous rnembershib in the local union, and not more than six months in-mviirs

of dues. This clause would continue to make certification difficult for the IWA where

members tended to shift from one local to another.51 Refusal 40 enter into collective

bargaining for more than 21 days was made an offence against the Act, but with a \

maximum fine of only $500. An employer, or any employee, cohld, after the c x p b of six

m b t h s from the date of official recognition of trade union bargaining agency statis, apply

to the minister for an investigation as to whether a majority of employ&s continued to be

members of t i e union. Bargaining rights would be automatically lost if such an , 5

-investigation demst ra ted less than a majority membership. Furthermore, the conciliation

and arbitration provisions of the Act were left more or less intact, adjusted only by the

empowering of the minister to'by-pass the conciliation stage at his discretian, and by the

imposition of a 14-day time limit for both parties to accept or reject an arbitration award.52

The immediate significahce of the amendment bill for the industrial unions still

largely under provincial jbisdiction, such as the IWA, was unmistakable, as witnessed by

the protestation of..the BCLA, &e B.C. Lumber and Shingle Manufacturers' Association ,

and the CMAu Nigel Morgan, in a feature article in the Jmnber Worker. called it'a "Bill

of Rights" for labour paving the way for a "new deal" in the province's labour relations.

Prom the perspective of his own union, in particular, given the strategy of signed

agreements pursued since 1940, and the frustration encountered trying to win these under

the terms of the 1937-38 Act, the 1943 amendment was a "'green light' for an all-out drive

to organize the unorganized," The IWA was preparing to negotiate'union agreements, or in 0

the process of arbitration, in 29 operations, according to Morgan. It was to be hoped that

the new ICA Act would facilitate the "quick settlement of these negotiations and result i n

peaceful and amicable adjust men^'%

In April, with the first-ever union agreement in the British Columbia luqber \

industry between local 1-363, and the small Batco Logging Company at Campbell River,

followed by the certification of local 1-80 as bargaining agent at the Rounds camp of Lake

Logging, the amended Act seemed to-be producing the desired quick results.ss But the b

IWA still had to make a breakthrough in the big Association camps and mills, and these

operators appear+ to be digging in for a last-ditch stand to keep the union out of their open

shop industry. In a rather strange turn of events, the final test of strength as to whether the

IWA would be able to use the new lggal structure to win legitimate industrial relations \ \

status occurred in logging camps on thei Queen Charlotte Islands, one of the few sites in the I 'i

entikg British Columbia lumber industry where the ICA Act did not apply. The Queen

Charlotte Islands became the battleground to decide the meaning of the &ended ICA Act- *

did collective bargaining mean and include the signing of a collective agreement with any

democratically elected union, regardless of its pblitical orientation or trade union

programme?

In February 1942, in response to the concerted and extensive efforts of the IWA to

negotiate union contracts throughout the coastal forest industry, R.V. Smart established

Stuart Research Service Limited as the industrial relations agency for the industry. The - \

IWA, with the support of the Pacific Coast La Bureau and lawyer John Stanton, w a

making increasing use of provincial boards of arbitration. It was necessary for the major

operators to coordinate a consistent position on the provisions of the ICA Act, and on the

IWA claim for legitimacy. Stuart, himself, served as the employer's arbitrator in two

important cases ih 1942 involving BSW and the Mohawk Lumber Company. -

During 1942, Stuatt also conducted negotiations with Elliott Little of NSS in an -

attempt to acquire a supply of skilled loggers from other parts of Canada.56 Prior to the

formation of Stuart Research, the Industrial Associatjon 'of British Columbia acted for the '\

lumber operators in a 'public relations and lobbying capacity.j7 Labour relations, such as

they were, were I - handled individually by each company, or each operation. By 1942, it'had -

become necess- fa$'the Association operators to adopt a more sophisticated and

systematic, if not "scientific," approach to indus&al relations. Stuart, with his 32 years

experience in the industry, was clearly the man for the job. After a brief sojourn wi& the ,

Canadian Puget Sound Lumber Company, Sman had joined the ~r i t i sh Columbia Forest

Brpch 1914. He was employed there until 1927, largely in the area of logging

ope&oninspection. In that capacity he 'gained a detailed knowledge of cost structures and C .

wage rates .prevailing in the different areas of the province. From 1928 to 194 1, Stuart

served as secr'etary-manager of the BCLA where he was constantly engaged in the

preparation df statistics and reports dealing with labotu and other costs, and their relation to

log prices. He also acted as secretary-treas4rer of the Logging Agency, Limited, the

BCLA's hiring hd1.58 In short, Stuart knew the economics and the politics of the industry

well-a knowledge that would prove invaluable in'helping to formulate a common position

on labour matters amongst a diverse groupo of companies of varying capitalization, I

sophistication and profitability. When the Queen Charlotte Islands dispute heated up C

during the summer of 1943, and it became clear that the future pattern of labour relations in

the industry would be dete&aed by the outcome on the Queen Charlottes, Stuart would

emerge as the chief spokesman and negotiator for the coast operators.

The federally-appointed conciliation board in the Queen Charlotte Islands dispute'

was chaired by Justice A.M. Harper, wiih Arthur Turner representing the IWA and R.H.

Tupper, the employers. They held hearings during the first five months of 1943. As a

large part of the holdings of Allison Logging had been taken over by Aero Timber, the @

parties agreed to eliminate that company from the pro~eedings.~9 The union, at the start of

1943, had not yet ma& sufficient inroads info the camps of the new Crown operation to

open up the question of collective bargaining there.60 Involved in the dispute, then, when

hearings began in earnest, were four camps of J.R. Morgan, t h e e of Kelley, and one of -

Pacific Mills, employing in d l approximately 530 men.61 ,

The employers' attorneys took the approach of trying to undermine the IWA's claim

to recognition by attacking its legitimacy as aLtrade union. Little of substance was Q

presented in argument other than accusations that the JWA, during k939-40, had opposed

aid to the allies at a time of great need; that it was a political movement hiding behind the

mask of a trade union; and, to top it off, it had been suspend4 by the CCL.62 F.R. . *^

Anderson, lawyer fur J.R. Morgan in this case, drew a distinction &tween responsible

unions and those others, like the IWA, led by men such as Ritchett and Morgari, "earnest

'1 fools," elected in bad judgement by *the rank-and-file woodworker^.^^ The question was,

should logging operators be asked to enter into a contract with a union that lacked the basic -

1 .

legitimacy of recognition by the Canadian labour movement, and whose patriotic

partic7pation in the war against fascism was open to question. *

In summarizing the union's case, John Stanton attempted to establish that

"collective bargaining," as a legal concept, entailed bargaining with a democratically elected

union of any description, and the signing of a collective agreement with that union. In

addition to citing the principles contained in PC 2685 and PC 10802, and their application

by boards in vari-ous recent disputes such as Kirkland Lake, Stanton also referfed to the.

recently amended ICA Act. While neither federal nor provincial legislation compelled the

signing of an agreerhent, Stanton admitted, shon of s k h cohpulsion the law did . .

everything it could to bring the parties together with a view to concluding an agreement.

Was it not reasonable, he argued, that parties, "having conducted negotiation and reached

agreement should consummate them in written form." Though, similarly, the American

Wagner Act did not specifically require agreements to be signed, Stanton cited rulings by

both the NLRB and the U.S. Supreme Court in which collective bargaining was found to

include a signed agreement. Stanton then tackled the particular objections raised rn 9

@ceming the IWA.

District One's war record he defended by noting the lack of g t u d strikes in the - =< "?- province involving the IWA. The campanies, the lawyer argued, were using evidence

. . drawn h m the American diskcts to impugn the record of @ IWA in British Columbia. ,

#

Pritchett, in fact, testified to his own active disagreement with the International vice-

president .regarding the union's position on America i&Ivement in the war. Neither, -

Stanton claimed, could the companies prove @ union to be an unfit bargaining agency '5

with respect to the personal integrity of union officials. Nor the* any jurisdictional Q .

dispute, the Pulp and Sulphite Workers Union having testified as to their support for the

IWA on the Queen Charlotte Islhds. As for the red-baiting, Stanton eloquently (and .

prophetically) lectured the board: I

If it should be established as a matter of principle.. .that the political beliefs L

of union leaders alone constitute legitimate grounds for -a refusal by the companies to bargain collectively, then the whole principle of collective bargaining falls to the ground. It is obvious,that the adoption of such a principle would lead to.veritable-witch-hunts, and that the views of union

I leaders would have to be examined in every case before agreements were . signed. It requires no argument to show what an intolerable situatiop

would develop in the trade union movement were this the case. It is . - noteworthy that in no law and in no decision of any arbitration board.. .is - -. any distinction made between "good" unions and "bad" unions-i.e., unions whkh meet the 'approval of employers and unions which do not.

In actuality, Stanton showed in his crowning argument, that distinction was probably of '

:

less significance in this case than the employers, with all their political and principle'd

posturing, had tried to maintain. He reminded the-board that F.R. Anderson had admitted

under questioning that, could the IWA have gbanteed a supply of men, the operators

would have signed with the union as the "lesser of two evils." If the companies' economic

self-interest dictated a settlement, "they would be quite prepared to sign with any unibn,"

Stan ton proclaimed.@

Stanton's summary brief, presented 19 May 1943: is particularly interesting for two

" reasois, First, his arguments, and the points raised in defence of them, appeared qaite

explicitly in the Harperflumer majority award in favour of the union. Secondly, his

J' . assessment of the companies' anti-union sentiments as being ultimately conditioned by

L . -

/ economic self-interest proved to be quite correct.

In the majority decision, Harper noted that over 90 percent of employees involved

in the dispute were membrs of the union, and that cdlective bargaining and written

agreements with demwratic unions under their own selected leadership was the "best . .

machinery for producing and maintaining a condition of haxmony in indushy." Since IWA

District officials were elected on a democratic basis in cpnvention, Harper found, it was the \

"character and reliatfility" of the union as a whole which had to be considered with respect /

' to the value of contracts entered into by local 1-71, and no attack had beesmade on the r

/ members of this local by the compsdes. Moreover, since the federal government, under its

emergency powers, had had full authority to suppress thextterances or actions of District 0 1

One leaders, and did not do so, it was not'the function of the board to judge their political

, views as a basis for aenying collective bargaining rights to a large body of loggers. Harper

concluded by citing PC 2685;an$in particular its application at Ifrkland Lake, as well as

s PC 10802, as justification and authority for his recommendation that the companies should

enter an agreement with local 1-71 for a period of one year, the terms of which had been I

largely already settled through neg~tiation.~~ Es

Termed by the ~incouver Province the fust major victory*of the IWA in British i

~ o l u m b i a , ~ ~ this decision caused considerable consternation in the industry (corning as it

&d only a couple of months after the amendments to the ICA Act). Negotiations with Aero

Timber, Lake Logging, Industrial Timber Mills, Victoria Lumber and &ufzicturing, -#

Alberni Pacific Lumber and several other major operations, held up pending the outcome of

the Queen Charlotte Islands case, would now proceed with new impetus.67 Under the

terms of the K A Act, and despite the three month membership provision, the IWA pressed

steadily forward with its cenific.ation By early August, the union could boast of

provincial certification in 28 different operations affecting 14 companies including Lake 1

Logging, VLM..Hammond Cedar, Shawnigan Lake Lumber, ~ i ~ c k s t Lumber, Mohawk

, * .

- , ' <

Lumber, Pacific Mills, Kelley Logging and J.R Morgan,69 That Harper's decision quite

deliberately incorporated the principle of union recognition found in rhe ICA Act was freely

admitpi by the Queen Charlotte Idands operators in their statement on the award. They

did not takeYissue with that principle, and would comply with their legal bargaining

obligations as they saw them, but continued to insist they would not sign working

agreements with the IWA under its current lea~Iershi~.~0

Two days after the Harper'award was handed d w n , the IWA-took its campaign for

union &cognition to the national stage. Nigel Morgan flew to Ottawa to present the unjon

brief, prepared by the PCLB, to the NWLB (McTague) Commission on Labour Relations

and Wage conditions in Canada, and to meet with federal labour officials regarding the .

completion of a union,ageeent on the Queen Charlotte island^.^^ I n his presentation to

the W B , Morgan cited the IWAls performance as an example of 'responsible trade s , ~ '

unionism in action. "Destructive" strikes of-coal and metal miners, auto and steel workers

were Wing pr~voked, the union's spokesman claimed, by anti-union employers. The

Queen Charlotte Islands employers were taking advantage of the IWA's desire to avoid a

strike to undermine the union's efforts at industrid peace through collective bargaining. He

noted in particular the withdrawal of previously enjoyed employee rights in all Queen .

Charlone Islands operations after IWA negotiators became invo1;ed. District One, Morgan

estimated, had between 9000 and 10,000 members, but only one union agreement. With *

certifications. increasing and negotiations under' way in 29 different operations, the I * \

employers' refusal to sign with the union was creating a "seyious crisis" in the industry.

While British Columbia's new ICA Act had gone some distance in dealing with the '

problem, Morgan once again urged that,"Canada needs a Wagner Act"-the a&o spruce

war industry being a case in point: "We have a peculiar situation in our industry'and we

cannot get anything at all. We hate to have a knock-down-and-drag-out fight. In Queen

i3harlotte Islands the operators came right out and said they would not sign anything, right

Y' e face of the Arbitration Board."72

mr*'his return from Ottawa, Morgan dxto~ed the work of the McTague ~ommis&m: 1

for carrying oat a great national service in studying t3e grievances of labour, and / . P

improhed labour legislation at the next sitting of parlia~nent.~3 With the authority of the

ICA Act and the Harper award behind them, with national labour legislation pending and

with several certifications in hand, IWA leaders felt a breakthrough was imminent. A 1

't

victory on the Queen Charlotte Islands would put a large crack in the open shop policy df

the Association operators, a d perhaps open the way for the federal Liberals to enact'a

national code. All this the.y hoped to accomplish without striking and by working within.

the confmes of the federal conciliation machinery. Bathe determination of events was not

entirely in the hands of District One leaders. e

By June 1943, the Queen Charlotte Islands dispute had k e n going on for well over

a year. Through the course of the previous winter and spring, under the Aero Timber ~ #

agreements, the workforce had been somewhat stabilized and cbnsolidated. sub-loch

organizations bad formed in most camps resulting in improved bunkhouses, dry houses,

new mattresses and other material improvements. As a result of this work, the membership P

as a whole began to takea keener interest in union affairs. ~ank-and-iile restlessness was

~hreatening to take the initiative for militant action away from ~ o r ~ & . a n d Pritchett unless

they acted 'quickly. At the semi-annual conference of local 1-7 1 in early July, delegates

threatened to conduct a strike vote on the Queen Charlotte Islands if the operators failed to 6 #

comply with the majority conciliation board award.74 il

I I I

From the point of view of the Association operators, the Queen Charlotte Islands I

dispute, while not directly sibject to the amended ICA Act, was their first clear opportunity * .\ to challenge its new pcinciples. In their public statements they made certain to draw a clear

4-

connection between the provisions of the new provinfial law .and the dispute. The 0

organized employers would take on the IWA in an area under the still relatively safe \

jurisdiction of federal law, where collective bargaining policy remained for the moment ill- F '

defined. yet tie the resoluti~n df the dispute to the new ICA Act. A victory over the IWA

u

a

ea $

on the Queen ~ h k l o t t e Islands would weakenhe authority of the

- applied to various arbitrations then pending or planned by the

undermine the passage of . . any new federal code based on similar

mean opening the gates to industry-wide bargaifiing under *

new federal code. But the operators, 'too, hoped to settle the matter bithout resort to a . . costly and unpopular work s;op:age. . .

-- ..T

.$

~; l lo&in~ the release of j e Harper ~ w a r d , ~ ~ e o r g e C W e , federal labour,re:ations I I

officer ba$ed in Bqcish ~olumbia, held three meetings with the two, sides. Agreement was

reached I on the terms of a collective'agreement. . Though they' continued to claim they pk 'i r

reca@ked the W A as bargaining agent, the operators balked~atZsigning a joint agreement a

,+ * - . ,with the union. This position was encodag& by Cunie as a possible basis for settlement.

, R.V. Stuart, in an attempt to link the'Queen Charlotte Islands dispute to loopholes in thc

provincial labour code, arkgnced that e r e a s o n the operators would notJign a'contract B * "

1' U'

with the IWA was thahthe union had not actually been certified the provincial

department of labour, in PI the camps involved, under the new provisions of the ICA Act. Q

Nigel Morgan quite correctly responded that when the federal conciliation board had been

set- up a year previous, the IWA ,- hid been required to provide proof to the federal

Departbent of Labour that it represented the majority of workers. Provincial certification ,

had nothing to do with acceptance of the Harper award, but was merely a smokescreeri to -Y

obscure the fact that the dispute had been going on fora,over two years. Furthermore, * T

Morgan noted that prolonged negotiations, &ling, and the operators' refusal to sign an

azreement, were aggravating the labour turnover problem on the Queen Charlotte Islands T

and making it more difficult for the union to comply with the three month membership

provision in the certification p r o c e ~ s . ~ ~ "h

h , At &e mid-summer conference of ~ i s t r i c t ' h e on 4 ~ u l ~ , after a glowing summary \ ' -

of recent organizational gains by the officers, a resolution on union recognition was passed .

asking the membership to prepare to take drastic action to enforce the Harper decision, On 6

15 July after a final attempt by Currie, local 1-7 1 announced it was applying to the federal >

department for a strike vote.76 District and local leaders were reluctam to engage in a strike. *

on the Queen Charlotte klands. Many of them, as communists or fellow travellers, agreed - a

in prindple with official CIO adherence to the no-strike pledge (just then under attack by

militkrs ~ wit 3- in the Americap labour In addition, much of District onk?s

case i s the Queen Charlotte Islands dispute, and for a national labour code, rested on -i

somewhat questionable assertions of its largely strike-free record in British Columbia since li

"

1939, despite provocations by the operators in the Charlottes and A strike in tl

a critical war induitry over union recognition at this point would be a garnb?z for the IWA.

Both the employers and the federal government knew that. Currie, to whom the application \ 8

for a vote was referred, gave the IWA some extra time by noting publicly the difficulty of

conducting a proper vote in the isolated northern camps of 'the Queen Charl0ttes.~9 I"--+

A> *//

Meanwhile, at a special meeting in Vancouver on 20 July 1943.42 coast operators,

allegediy representing 75 percent of the province's forest.. indusv draft4 a wire to

Humphrey Mitchell in support of the Queen Charlotte Islands operators. The text of the

wire and a list of the companies involved appeared in the Vancouver papers on 21 July

1943. The companies' proposal, the wire proclaimed, offered a sound practical plan for i d

collective bargaining in the forest industry of British' Columbia, and would ensure the .

continuation of the peaceful conditions that had thus far prevailed. The wire w b signed by @ 4

almost all the major coastal operators, most of whom were then individually facing a

concerted DNA drive for certification amj signed agreement under the provine@ statute.80 .?a L ?

To counter the new offensive of the coastal operators organized'under the umbrella

of Stuan Research Service, the NU'A sent a plea to Canadian trade unionists across th t

country. The trade union movement, the letter said, was faced with a serious challenge

I

resulting from the expressed refusal of 42 of the lgrgest logging and mill operators to

bargain co~ectively a.qd:&bnclude i n agreement in accordance with PC 2685 and th"e ICA

Act. Trade unionists'were asked to protest this refusal to both federal and provincial .* ,

i \ departments of labour.t1. A broad appeal for public support appeared in newspaper ads

1 under the IWA crest appealing for resolufions, telegrams and letters to be sent to ~umphrey

Mitchell demanding the enforcement of conective bargaining principles in order ta forestall

the destructive strike being provoked by the Queen Charlotte Islands operators, with the 6

,+ backing of the 42.** I n late August, TLC president Percy Bengough and Aaron &her of

the?XI, both made repiesentations to federal officials on behalf of t i e woodworkers - ,

union.83 1 ,

a .During the last p a of August,, Currie once again intervened to try to facilitate a u

settlement. Meetings took place with R.V. Stuart and Aero ~ i m b ~ President Filberg

*resenting the companie~, and the IWA. But with over a monih having elapsed since the

?orma1 strike vote request, the-workers in the Queen Charlotte Islands camps were growing. 4

perturbed, perhaps as much with the District officers as with the federal dfficials. The. a i

L DisPict Executive set an 8 September deadline f& federal action on the vote, yhile Morgan

I

' I tried to calm his membership with assurances that the federal department was y i n g every

\ effort to settle the dispute and avoid having to take a strike vote.\ In case a vbte became

necessary, the District would offer the use of the union boat in order for federal 0

reach the camps.84 i t

Based on his mediation efforts, Cume drafted a propo~ed

agreement for the two parties at the beginning of September. It included a union a I

F' covering the present pay scale for one more year, free transp~rtation,~overtime ay and

\ i

labour-management committees. The operators' counter-proposal accepked Currie's emo, ., including recognitio'n of the union as baqpining agent, but declined a "b'i-!atera1 agreement"

with the I W A which, they said, would only lead to furtier disput&. The IWA, of course,

rejected this offer, and Pritchett was poised to fly to Ottawa within days if no strike vote

1 - 127-

assurance was forthcoming. Because Deputy Minister of Labour, A. McNamara, was . ' anxious to avoid a supervised vote which would in kffect provide the government's official ts

authorization to proceed with a work stoppage in a vital war indus& he quickly intervened

by asking the camp-mies to continue discussions with Currie.85

The companies apparently had no intention of cooperating, In a new .round of talks,

I ' they reintroduced, in a slightly reviSed form, a demand made during the July discussions \

I designed, once again, tb use the provisions of the ICA ~ c t to undermine the union's

position on the Queen Charlotte Islands. They wanted a new majority vote of employees,

certified by the provincial Department of Labour, to determine the bargaining agency before

they would agree to union recognition. Under the provisions of the Act, they would

continue to recognize the bargaining agent only so iong as it remained cemfied. As Nigel

- Morgan quickly pointed out, a new vote of employees could be called for by the Smployer J

every six months, according to the Act. A sudden influx of new members, or a camp

. ' closure could quickly terminate the bargaining relationship with the union, a situation.'

hardly conducive to industrid stability.g6

This new proposal was clearly not aimed at bringing a settlement. The companies

appeared determined to force the IWA into the position of having to conduct a strike vote.

If the operators could stall long enough, winter curtailment of operations, and the normal

fluctuation of crews might take th'e steam out of the union drive. The District Executive, of

course, had no intention of complying with a provincial certification vote on the Queen

Charlotte Islmds as a pre-condition to a settlement, when the current dispute technically fellc

under fede. al jurisdiction, and bargaining agent status was clearly established. The

membership woujd never have tolerated such a move, nor was the six m ~ n t h revote clause

in the interests of the M A in an area of still relatively high turnover. The next vote on the

Queen Charlotte Islands would be a strike vote, plain and simple, whether supervised by

the department or not.

, .

I Following the operator^' p w proposal, and qith (workers at Pacific Mills' camp

i .

already gearing up for a saike bte of their ow., the District set the vote for 30 September, - , I 1

. to be conducted by the sub-lods in the camps. The strike would commence the following - 1

day. ~ u h o u r s had circulated about the.p~ssible*appointrnent of an Industrial Disputes I

I .

Investigation Cornmis~ioner-. qut Morgan feared he could ndt offer a mere possibility of - I further-government interventio to'the men as an alternative to the action they were

. I '

When ~ i t c h e l i fin& appointed Justice S.E. Richards 'of FVinnip& as ' , . . 1

Commissioner to investigate the dispute inder PC 4020, it was too iate to call .off the vote, I f-

Nevertheless, the Dish-ict and local executives' requested the loggers to postpone strike

- achonfor one weqk, t o 4 October. Any delay beyond that was impassible. On 1 October

loggers in all Queen Charlotte &mds camps kvolved.in the'dispbte,voied f m l y in favour

By this time industrid relations battles underway at several individual coast I I I ,

operations were becoming l/nked together. Between 20 and 30 arbitration boa I

applications were on hold at *e provincial department of labour awaiting the o~tcome I n -

viewed as outside agitators. In the Lake Logging hearings, the union was able to cite he i ,- - Harper award as counter-argument. Farris, the company attorney: refused to comment i$ut -

the Queen Charlotte I~ lands .~9 In those that were proceeding, the operators acted'in

I , instead used Stuart's tactics, charging that union witnesses had confused their desire for

> .

collective bargaining with their desire for a union agreement. No valid dispute existed

i

concert with the Queen Charlotte Islands companies, attacking the I W A war record,

beween the company and its employees, he' pleaded. It was a unim~dispute being used by.

its %

the union to strengthen its authority with its members, and to induce others to join.@

illegal strike at Lake ~ o w i c h a ' in 1941, and the political affiliation of its leaders who'wkre .

The Lake Log majority award handed down on 1 October, took one more tortuous

and incremental step toward legtimation of theJIWA at Lake Cowichan. The agreement

would be between the company and its employees-acting through their legally certified

bargaining agency, local 1-80. It w o & k signed by the president a id secretary of local 1-

80 for the employees of Lake Log. For all htents and purposesethere was little difference

between the majority award and a union agreement. Employee response was favourable.

\ . I The union viewed it as a union agreement. k . ~ . Stuart, however, with the Queen I

- 1 Charlotte Islands dispute in mind, commented that the award recommended an agreement

with the employee, not the union.gl

On Wednesday, 6 October, two days before the strike deadline, a d without District

I or local authorization, 90 loggers at the ~kedans Bay sub-local of Kelley Logging ceased t

work in an attempt to put pressure on the negotiations. Nigel Morgan admitted to the press

i I that the walkwhid not-have District authorization, but explained that since the men had

been waiting two years there was not much he could do about it. If nothing came from

Thursday's meetings with Justice Richards that he could recornmend to the men, the 1 .

District officers would have to authorize $be strike action agreedto already.g2

The day prior to the strike deadline, British Columbia's aade union movement took

out Iarge half-page advertisements in all the Vancouver dailies to prepare the public and the

trade union rank-and-file for the impending showdown on the Queen Charlotte Islands.

Asking the rhetorical question "Industri~ ~ e m & r a c ~ or Industrial Feudalism, which is it to

Yf be?" the advertisement was signed by all the labour councils affiliated with both 'l

congresses, and by representatives from most of the province's major trade unions I 1 including the Street Railway Employees, the Fishermen, Boilermakers, Mine Mill, I '

I Shipwrights, Shipyard Workers, United ~ i n d Workers, Cannery Workers, Fire Fighters,

Hotel and Restaurant Employees, Moulders and Foundry Workers, Steel Workers and

Aeronautical Mechanics. The unions denounced the current open shop drive of the BCLA

and the British Columbia Lumber Manufacturers' Association, and the company union

campaign of the Consolidated Mining and Smelting Association and others, which

threatened to rob labour of the rights for which the present war was being waged. Labour

had accepted its wartime responsibilities in various ways, including restraint in using the

strike weapon, the message.read. The powerful industry associations on the other hand '\, -

I

were openly defying the intent and spirit of pmvinciaI and dominion labour legislation, and I

encouraging the operators on the Queen Charlotte Hands to refuse t o sign a union \ \

agreement. These so-called dollar patriots "running the vital aeroplane spruce in$stry, ' L

encouraged and abetted by signed statements of 42 other lumber operators," had now gone \ so far as to suggest a lzk-out of their employees. "What of post-war policy?" the unions \

I demanded. Were soldiers to- return from battle to be thrown on the laboh market at the I

I

mercy of open shop employers and company unions? ~ b u l d "industrial democracy" be

denied to them too? Would the lumber barons continue "to dominate.. .the political life of

this province, in defiance of the laws of the country?" How much longer, as in the Queen

Charlotte Islands dispute and numerous others, would the government of 'the province

"allow the labour laws to be interpreted so as to defeat every labour act passed in the '

legislature?" How much longer would the "federal government continue to permit .?s,

employers to refuse to bargain collectively in good faith and deny to labour its democratic

right?" The ad concluded with an appeal to the general public of British Columbia on

behalf of 30,000 workers employed in "our great basic ind~stry--lumber.'9~

On 8 October negotiations broke off, By the following day eight Queen Charlotte

~sIands camps were shut down with the walkout of over 500 1ogge1-s.~~ For some time,

the prolonged process of negotiation, conciliation and investigation had provided a legal

covqr for the District Council's reluctance to strike during wartime. Morgan and Pritchett

had long been committed to working within the industrial relations apparatus as the surest

means of gaining legitimation for their union. But by the fall of 1943, with so many

lactors in their favour, winter approaching, and the local membership ready to seize the

initiative, it was no time to adhere to the letter of the law. The strike was authorized finally

on the basis of the union's own vote; a confrontation with the combined might of the

coastal industry on the issue of union recognition. To reinforce that position, Morgan

1

\ notified a- meeting of Vancouver Labour Council delegittes that eoeral hundred Lake f

t-

,' <-

Cowichan employees might also be on strike within a week.95 \ 1

I 1

Once the strike was underway, a strike vote was also conduct? amongst the 1 0 0 *\

employees ip the Aero Timber damps prior to application for a federal donciliation board in - . that dispute. Fifteen thousand dollars was quicklp pledged to the ~ u e e h Charlotte Islands

strike fund by IWA locals and other trade unions, including $7000 from the Lake Logging

sub-local. ,On 15 October it too voted 755 to 5 to strike in support'of its own recent

arbitration award, and in support of the broad demand for union recognition across the '

, . 1ndustry.96

The Queen Charlotte Islands operators stepped up their own public relations effort

with a newspaper advertisement claiming the strike was unnecessary, given their

acceptance of union recognition, and illegal, since it came before a government supervised

vote. The claim of illegality was weak, given government procrastination, as was the ."

position of the-operators in general.97 A Vancouver Province editorial found that the

operators did not have a good case in denying the union its legal rights in view of the I

Harper recommendation and the hami being done to an essential war industry.98 Elmbre

Philpott's column in the of 16 October went even further. The workers had been on

strike for only two weeks, Philpott wrote, trying to break the two-year strike of the -

"reactionary" bosses against labour's legitimate rights. The Queen Charlotte Islands work

stoppag: was the most glaring example of the need for a labour code in Canada, something

for which the Liberal rank-and-file were now clamouring, in order to hold the King

government's declining popularity. The lack of such a code was the real root of over 90

percent of what were iniscalled "labour" troubles in Canada, according to the & ~ r i t e r . ~ 9

With support from the trade union movement as a whole, other IWA locals, and the

establishment press, morale amongst the loggers remained high. Most of them stayed in *

the camps where they paid their usual charge for room and board, and had normal access to

the company stores. Strike coriunittees operated in eaqh camp, and in at least one case,

according to the Lumber Worker. began a special military training programme to keep "the

boys" busy. Oa x -

Pressure on the Queen Charlotte Islands operators from the labour movement and a 6

d e t e r m i d workforce was compounded by economic concerns over -disruptions to

i production, not so much of aero spruce timber, but of pulpwood. The crown-owned Aero

T p b e r Company itself was the main producer of logs for the aircraft industry, and its - operations were still unaffected by the strike.lol Of the total of 6 million board feet of lost

production in the Kelley and Pacific Mills logging operations d d n g the strike, an estimated

2.8 million would have gone to aircraft production, the remainder to pulp. No precise

figures were available for J.R. Morgan's operation but it sold all its hemlock and low grade

spruce to the Ocean Falls mill, and only its high grade spruce to Sitka s p k c e Lumber.lo2

Their role as important suppliers for the two highly capitalized pulp mills at Powell River

and Ocean Falls, where stable labour rela-tions were crucial to continuous production,

prevented Kelley and Pacific Mills from engaging in a prolonged battle with the IWA.

In a 1945 NWLB appeal against a RWLB wage rollback for Queen ~ h i r l o t t e

Islands loggers, Pacific Mills, Kelley and J.R. Morgad companies provided interesting

information concerning their linkages with the pulp industry which give a good indication

of the situation that applied in 1943. The Pacific Mills plant at Ocean Falls, employing

1200 workerg drew 70 percent of its lbg supply from the Queen charlotte limits. Powell

; River, with 1400 employees, relied on Queen Charlotte Islands logging for all of its spruce

logs and over 25 percent of its entire supply. Its newsprint operations could not continue OI

without the supply of spruce from the Islands. In both cases, the companies alleged that

compliance with the federal government's programme of increased sppce lumber

production had seriously curtailed development of alternative logging holdings, making

their operations rigidly dependent on supplies from the Queen Charlottes. A shutdown,. s?

$-irticularly at isolated Ocean Falls where alternative employment was not easily obtainable -

nearby, would have m e a t possible further disruption after a return to work in replacing

- ;=

'E_ 3 ,

k? L , - 133-

P r - -

dispersed mill hands. Moreover, @e ~ o m ~ & ~ ' ~ two converting plants in Vancouvkr which

-+. produced-boxes, 9 food packaging and shipping materids for a wide range of industries, I

werg both p d l y supplied by materials from Ocean Falls.'" %

3 The Queen Charlotte Islands companies, with the assistance of Stuart Research and ,

the clout of the big-Association operators behind them, had hoped to beat back the IWA -;

without a strike through the'ir manipulation of the federal and provincial industrial relations

machinery. The well-publicized Kirkland Lake dispute had demork&ated cle&ly to Swan '

the advantages of the wartime regime of compulsory conciliation in prolonging the

negotiation process.lo4 Once a strike was called, given tkc econo@c rigidity of the pulp

companies, 'the continuing problem of attracting workers, lack of public support for the

industry's bargaining position, and mounting political pressure for a national l a b u r code,

th'e Queen Charlotte Islands operators clearly had no chance of prevailing. By October

1943, it had become evident to the pulp companies that unionization had finally qome to the

logging industry, as it had to their mill operations during the 1930s. There was more to be

lost through continued resistance than from signing a collective agreement which might

bring a greater measure-of industrial stability, at least for the'duration of the war. Stanton's

po'int made before the conciliation board had been quite correct--economic self-interest

would, if immediate circumstances dictated, override the employers' anti-union sentiments. . . d

The strike was relatively uneventful and- ended quickly on 23 October. Kelley * .

Logging, the powell River subsidiary,'was the fust to capitulate. Thomas Kelley finally '

gave an ultimatum to the other companies--either sign a joint n

ranks, a position which was allegedly conveyed to District One leaders via the

Boilermakers' chief, Bill White. J.R. Morgan, with no direct corporate links to the pulp

companies, was, according to union lawyer Stanton, "the hold-out artist."lo5 The final t

one-year-agreement, worked o;t with assistance from Currie and Richards, and signed by

all three companies, was based squarely on the Harper award, with one minor concession

to the employers. The union, as party to the agreement, was recognized as bargaining

agent in all earnps where it was certifiedtby the provincial Department df Labour. 1i - . L

addition, the contxac t hcluded seniority , leave of absence provisions, travel rebates, * ,

grievance procedure, binding arbitration of all unsettled disput&, joint production and

safety conimittees. The current wage scale was maintained with the companies agreeing to c

join the union in any request to the RWLB for continuation of the-one-tfiird war b o i ~ u s . ~ ~ ~

As part of the settlement, Pritchett, upon the request of ~ichards, signed a separate letter of

agreement the IWA to no strikes in the Queen Charlotte Islands operations for the-

duration of the,war.lo7 This added assurance of industrial stability in the pulp and aero U

timber sector was no doubt important sugar coating to the bitter pill of recognizing the IWA

as bargaining agent Spokesmen R.V. Stuart stated in his press release that the employers

agreed to dgn realizing the vital danger to the war effort was more important than th~ir.own

private interest.lo8

The IWA victory on the Queen Charlotte Islands opened the d q r to industry-wide ' .

bargaihing rights. The Vancouver a, editorializing on the settlement, noted that it would v

go a long way to fixing a policy of labour relations in the 1umber;industry for the duration ' -

of the war, recognizing the right of workers to make collective agreements. The .< . .

predicted legislation to that effect at the comlng session of parliament, but warned tha!

industrialists would then have the right to dcmand from organized labour "more - -

responsibility towards the job and toward industry generally."1:09 The same day, Lake

Logging Company signed a union agreement based on the majority arbitration board , ,

award. l o

During the first week of November, the certification of local 1-71 as bargaining

. agent for 850 loggers in the nine camps of Aero Timber Products was quickly followed by

a full union agreement, similar to that signed with the other Queen Charlotte Islands

operators.ll1 The provincial Department of Labour, that same week, asked the union if it

would be willing to withhold the constitution of arbitration boards in the more than twenty

disputes pending. The department had reason to believe, it wrote in its letter to District

J

officials, "that'in view of the precedent established, the disputant parties would appreciate & .

the opponunity i f further negotiation with a view to settlement"l l2 .

the'knal two months i f 1943, in accordance with that understanding, Stuart

Re~earch~entered into negotiation with District One offic,ials for a blanket coastal agreement

a A settlement was announced in I)ecember which covered 23 camps and mills and 8000

workers,, including the operations of ~ loedel , Canadian Western, Industrial Timber ~ i l l s , - '-* I

Alberni Pacific Lumber, Victoria Lumber nd Manufacturing, Comox Logging and 9 Railway and Mohawk Lumber. This fmt industry-wide agreement also provided for the

ahtomatic inclusion of additional bargaining units as the union brought them under its

. certification.113

Following the signing of a coast-wide master contract, and with a federal "labour

code" more or less assured, the District met in convention in January 1944, and for the fmt

time formally endorsed the International IWA -, and b CIO n~-s t r ike?~led~e for the duration of

the war.' l4 There may have been inchoate rumbling$ of opposition amongst the rank-and-

file which never surfaced at theie gatherings. Inseveral kmerican CIO unions such as the 3,

United Rubber Workers and the"^^^, rafk-and-file opposition to the n o - s d e pledge had

coalesced by 1944 in the form of strong debate, factionalism and a%ing tide of work 1

stoppages anh wild cat strikes."l15 No such disruptions occurred in Dishict One of the k' - a

IWA in part because of the organizational control exerted by the District Council and loyal /

local leadership. But the reasons go deeper than.that.'

Whereas the CIO had adopted its no-strike policy early in the war, District One had

recently waged a successful strike resulting in a master agreement. In the United States, by

1944, the CIO strategy of accommodation with Roosevelt and the NLRB was breaking I

R

down under a determined right-wing assault from the business community. As the CIOYs

support for accommodation began to slip, its communist union leaders stood out all the f

more starkly as strident "no strikers," easy targets for-right-wing unionists such as those on *

I

the IWA Internation&-Board.l16 In Canada, the authority of the King government with , ,

both labour and businesi had been recently consolidated with the implementation of PC .

1003, the restructuring of the NWLB and the passage of wage-freeze order PC 9384. The .1 81

CC&, for the first time, in the summer of 1944, gave conditional support&o~he no-strike +I'

pledge underhken by many of its large affiliates. As its offiaal o&an, the - -

Unionist in an editorial titled "No Strikes for the Duration," noted: -

P

The adoption of the Labour Code by Order-in-Council P.C. 1003, and the establishment of the National War Labsur Board, have considerably facilitated the settlement of disputes by providing machinery for the Q

determination of bargaining agents, and also to expedite collective bargaining. In the circumstances, the necessity for using the strike weapon I

has been minimized to a considerable extent, and much more use might be <

made of the principle of arbitration ... During this fiiral period of the struggle, both employers and workers might reasonably be asked to make whatever concessions are necessary for- maximum production.

Canadian circumstances surrounding the policy of labour peace were quite different ?

I

from those in the United States in 1944 and helped make its adoption in District One not /

terribly controversial even amongst loyal supporters of the CCF-dominated Congress. - 1

- a*. Moreover, as part of the union's strategy of consolidation after achieving the plateau of a

I

i , ,

master agreement, such a policy made eminent sense'within the restricted wartime terrain of I

collective bargaining.

\ Chapter Five

The signing of a rudimentary industry-wide contract inaIWA Dismct One covering 4

., 8-10,000 workers in most of the larger operations on the coast was an achievement' of

major y i f icance in the,history of ~ri t ish ~o l imbia labour. Ydt it still remained to bring

all those employees into the union, extend the contract throughout coastal operations, and

strengthen its terms through negotiation before beginning the arduous task of organizing *.

I

the largely untouched industry of the interior.

Recognition had been won, but full legitimacy required the consolidation of the

union's bargaining agency status not only with the employers, but amongst the

woodworkers themselves. Having established a working "industrial relationship" with

Stuart Research, the union would now set about to fashion a more "mature" if cot '

burkaucratic dispo f ition towards collective bargaining and contract administration out of the

"do-or-die" militancy of the previous years. Again, the discrete parameters of the trade

union agenda, rather than Party policy would dete&ne industrial tactics. 1

The new Wartime Labour Relations Regulations (P.C. 1003),1 a contractual ban on .

ar 6- strikes +ring the life of an agreement, government regulation of wage settlements, together

i with the ldynamics of the union's own organizational agenda served as a more certain check

J

ncy in 1944-45 than did the LPP's "National Front for Victory" policy, or pious

union plhges to refrain from striking. Furthermore, if militancy was on the back burner, it

had more to do with events in the British Columbia woods than with the meeting of

Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin at Teheran, and the subsequent policy of post-war

accommodation between capitalism and socialism concocted by CPUSA leader Earl D

Browder, and applauded by Tim Buck.

Though neither the LPP's "collaboration" with King's Liberals nor "Browderism"

determined the District agenda during 1944-45, they did provide a comfortabl

climate within which union officials could pursue their programme of consolidation without

I . t J " d %

rn y contradictions. At the same time there is little evidence t@;Pritchen or oth& in the i ~ i s b c t leadership delic;ed in ~ m h e r ' s visioa of post-~eheran harmony in world affairs. . --.

hot until April 1945 that the'issue oficially came before the District when British . ~ o l u h b i a LPP leader Fergus McKean addressed the union execurive on the ~rowderist

L

3( post- ar world perspective for labour under monopoly capitalism. That same month,

P howev r, French Communist leader, ~ a c ~ u e s Duclos, with the backing of Moscow,,

American party and Browder for holding similar views. By July, Browdefism

both the United States and Canada. In September, Nigel Morgan U

* ,

cKean as British Columbia leader ofsthe LPP after the latter's opportu-< \ \ '\.

of Browder and criticism of Buck. The provincial party quickly lined:up

-imperidism salvos.2

history, but runnin'g parallel to it, District Qpe I

in preparation for a resumption of a more

militant class ggle when conditiohs favoured it. 7 \ a I 1

\ - I \ I

1 \

PC 1003, yhich in April 1944 replaced the ICA Act in British Columbia for the \

duration of the war,,)taken together with the federal wage-control structure, comprised the \

institutional framewoik forr.& IWA's policy of consolidatign. PC 1003 bent further than , -I-

the ICA Act in explicitly o&awing all woik stoppages the-course of an agreement, I

* and d&ected all disputes ?bough a grievaw/arbitration procedure which was mandatory in

every agreement. On the other hand, it relieved the IWA of the provincial Act's onerous *

>

three-month membership clause, thus opeing up the possibility -of rapid certification of

several large operations, especially in the 'transient logging sector. The Lumber workeL:'

estimated that PC 1003 made possible the immediate inclusion of an additional 4000 &

~ n e r n b e r s . ~ In MarCh; before the federal order took effect, jocal 1-85 hid a&ady .L

announced the certification of several BSW operations, including the mill at Pon ~lbernf,

two *nklin River camps, and Camp 9 at Great Central Lake, possiblyothe largest

certification ever made in British Columbia according to the local paper the 5-. 4

It noted that the diff iht ies in getting a majority with three months.stahding had'bee* .s

tremendous due to a large turnover, and apathy. Congratulations were'given to sub-local I '* ' a

officers and job stewards for their determination in carrying through the sign-up.4 Now;

with PC 1003, the work of l&l officials would be that much easier, and certifkations 1 -

much more instantaneous f~llowing~an initip mmbership drive. '

Indeed, there was sti1l"Auch orga&ing to be done. At best, the initial rnastei

i I

agreement covered one in three,woodworkers in the province, and not even all those were . .

members. A series of organizers' conferences was held in March, April and May of 1944 '

to review progress and ado$ a strkegy for the ensuing season. At Great Central Lake

there were still several camps to be completed. Local 1-217, the Vancouver mill local,

reported that thke more mills were ready for cemfication, in addition to the existing five, as

soon as PC 1003 took effect, though organization at 20 more mills had still to be started.

With 40 operations in its jurisdiction in March 1944, the local held a membership of ,

approximately 1000 out of an estimated poteritial of 4000.. One of the main problems cited- .

was difficulty in tdlung to the Chinese."e latter were concentrated particularly heavily

in the shingle sector in Victoria and the lower mainland, but were also scattered throughout

the milling industry. In May 1944, approximately one-half of 1400 shingle workers in the

Vancouver. area were organized. That month the District employed a special Chinese

organizer, Roy Mah. The Chinese were by no means all anti-union, but apathy, problems

in communication, and the "Tyee" system impeded membership consolidation at many

mills. In ~ictop.a , Mah reported between' 200 and 300 Chinese members in the local. Of

60 employed at APL's still uncertified Great Central Lake mill, 30 were union m e w ,

and Mah hoped to sign the remainder. He emphasized the need for a Chinese-language -

bulletin on union activity, and for the union to address, the problem of freeing the Chinese '

from the "Tyee" system which washe mdn iss'ue amongst these ~ o r k e r s . ~

Pritchett reported a dues-paying membership in February of 10, y % h he

estimated a total of 14,000 including those in arrears. As organization of the Cburtenay-

Campbell River area was fairly complete, organizer Don Barbur was moved to ~ancouver *

as manager of the IWA hiring hall in an stimulate some interest amongst workers

in union hiring.7 In the Vancouve cal, 1-71, as of March 1944 Dalskog d---

reported 2000 workers still to be organized. By May, with PC 1003 in effect in British \

Columbia, the situation wac rapidly imp;oving. Local 1-7 1 reported 15 new certifications,

though many were for small non-asskiation camps. At the same time,Morgan reported to

the District executive a total of 83 operations under the master agreement, covering 15,112

employees, up by almost 5000 since December 1943.8 In general, the union strategy was

to concentrate its still limited resources on the coast before looking to the interior, where, at

any rate, a survey of the workforce, wage scales and conditions would have to be carried

out prior to the start of intensive organizational .work.g 1

The coast master agreement expired on 1 December 1944. In the meantime, the

union's task was to bring as many mew certifications under the contract as passible prior to r

its renegotiation. Because, unger PC 1003, agreements couldhot be signed for a period of

lass than one year, the ~istpibt executive/ voted to approach R.V. Stuan with a request for /

joint action to amend the order to codply with the requirements of the' industry-wiie

agreement so that a uniform terminatio date could be obtained.1•‹ At the sameexecutive

meeting it was decided to send intema b nal organizers McCuish and Greenall in to local 1 - 1

367 in the Fraser Valley where the union had a base of 750 currently organized. They were

to conduct - an all-out campaign to complete the organization of the remaining 1800 workers

in that territory, and to call an area confelence of representatives from all camps and mil 1s to 4 6 .-

establish the most effective machinery for' union work.' l Within days, however, Greenall,

a member of the LPP, had been fired by the International Director of Organization, George

Brown, following investigation ofcharges made by George Mitchell, Stewart Alsbury and 'l

others in the anti-left opposition that Greenall had interfered in a local election by accusing '\

\ one of the candidates on the "white bloc" slate of being a "scab."lz brganizing continued

apace throughout the spring and summer months, despite continued harassment from the

international officers.13 By July, local 1-71 announced itself the largest local in the \

International. Plans were afoot to send an organizer into the interior to&& a local in the

Crm brook area. l4

.o* course, not all was progress. In its first quarter with a permanent manam, the

union hiring hall still managed to despatch only 178 men, as loggers continued to seek

employment through the established channels.15 At the newly certified Mission Sawmill

Co. in local 1-367, the crew voted to accept a wage rate below the War Labour Board -

ceillng.l6 Nevertheless, at the year's second quarterly meeting in July, Pritchett was able

to report well over 100 signed union agreements covering 20,000 wobclworkers, and a @

gain of 1800 paid-up menibers in three months. Four recently appointed international

organizers for the FAser Valley, the interior, the Queen Charlottes and fo? the Chinese,

brought the total organizational staff on the International payroll to eight. Meanwhile, at a

meeting with R.V. Stuart and the federal minister of labour, with approximately 60 more .A

operations in the process of being certified, agreement was reached on a uniform contract C

date for all contracts signed under the master agreement of 1 December. The District Board

began planning for a contract conference in preparation for the 1945 negotiations.17 By

September, the month of the proposed negotiation conference, reports from twohf the

newly appointed organizers were mixed. In the new Cranbrook local, 1-405 Langmead -

/ reported that the wage situation was chaetic. Any attempt to standardize rates through the

R W t B would likely have to wait until district-wide negotiations were undertaken. Roy

blah, on the other hand, reported great suceess with an estimated 80 percent of the 2000

Chinese working in the coast industry organized. Three Chinese-language issues of the

Lumber Worker had helped Mah in his efforts, particularly in locals 1-357 and 1-217. In

the latter a Chinese member was'elected to the executive. At Great Central Lake, a A n e s e

shop steward was commended for his work amongst the Chinese employees in the ~ lbek i

During the two or three years prior to recognition, the District, with the assistance

of the Pacific Coast L a b s Bureau, had brought several cases of wage disparities between a

similar operations in close geographical proximity and employing similar job classifications <.

to the war labour boards.19 The union had taken up these cases as part bf its battle to win

bargaining agency status and formal union recognition in particular plants and camps.

After the attainment of the first master agreement, the Dismct continued to address the

problem of an industry-wide wage standard with respect to particular categories of I

workers, most notably 'women.

One important case concerned Hammond 'Cedar Company, one of the first mills

certified under the 1943 ICA Act amendments, but a hold-out from the master agreement.

Industrial Timber mils at Youbou, on Vancouver Island, under the same ownership and

management as the Hammond mill, was covered by the a ~ e m e n t . 2 ~ Before signing with

Hammond, the union was intent on enforcing wage rates comparable to those prevailing at

Youbou. Hamrnond argued that despite common ,management the comparison was not

valid between two different mills in different locales, the one (Youbou) cutting fir, the other

cutting' cedar.21 In December 1943 the union made application to the RWLB for wage - !

increases for most of the occupational class,ifications at this mainland lubber and shingle

mill of 420 employees and explicitly requested elimination of separate categories and wage

rates h r the 50 female workers. On 31 January 1944 the RWLB granted increases

acceptable to the union'and gave recognition to the principle of equal pay for equal work.

Upon appeal from th; iornpany for reconsideration, the RWLB, on 13 March, upheld its \

origmal finding and d~rectiort, but later that month granted leave to the company to appeal to

the national ba rd . The NWLB lowered most of the basic wage mtes under dispute so they

were barginally below those at Youbou, but still considerably higher than what had

prevailed prior to December 1933. The most important point of difference between the

-143- . .,

company and the union'<oncerned rates paid to female workers.22 On this issue the IWA

scored an important victory for women employed at Harnmond, and in the coast lumber

industry in general. The Board found the company's evidence that female labour was less

productive than male "insufficient and rather inconclusive" and awarded the women

employees, who were for the most part engaged in common labouring jobs, the standard B

base rate of 65 cents after 12 months of employment, increasing in five-cent increments

every four months fr a starting point of 50 cents. This rate was a considerable .- P" improvement over the @-cent starting rate rising to a ceiling of 55 cents after three months

being offered by the company.= Despite the national board's reduction of the RWLB

award, the unibn considered it had won a significant victory in principle, reenforcing the

already established by the NWLB in a case between UE and Welland Chemical

Company. TheJ award applied to the lumber industry the,standard practice for

codpensating female wartime .workers in the shipyards, aircraft industry and on the 4

railr0ads.2~ Coming just prjor to the 1945 District-wide negotiations, the decision of the

NWLB provided an important benchmark for the negotigtion of rates in mills employing

female labour.= Hamrnorid Cedar finally signed an agreement with local 1-367 in June

1945, eighteen months after the initial appeal to the RWLB.26

\ In the months prior to the opening of negotiations, in addition to the Hamrnond

case,, stabilization of hages and adjustment of category rates were concerns in other

operations as well. Train crews, slowly being displaced by truck logging as operators

moved orno steeper grades and more inaccessible stands, were still an important component

in the workforce of most of the major logging operation^.^^ Historically, trainmen were at

work longer hours than the logging crews which they transported to and from camp. A 10-

hour day was customary, with no overtime provision. The union claimed that though

trainmen were trained and licensed tradesmen with increasingly heavy responsibilities, their

hourly wage rates had fallen distinctly behind those of logging crews. The union wanted

trainmen's work to be based on a standard eight hour day, with appropriate overtime and

- 144-

lunch-breaks, and an hourly rate set equivalent to that of the highly paid rigging crews.28

From the Port Alberni local, 1-85, the Dismct negotiating committee received demmds

from stationary engineers for proper recognition of the skill and qualifications necessary to

attain a second-class ticket, in the form of an hourly increase of more than 2'5 percent.29

Local 1-85 also recommended wage adjustments for eleven other substandard categories in

Port Alberni's mills, based on the skill, responsibility or hazard attached to specific jobs

such as carriage setters, electricians, green chain pull-off, first-aid attendant and tail

sawyer.30 These particular concerns were among a whole series of issues and demands

that were grappled with by delegates from the eight British Columbia locals at the District

Negotiations Conference held in Nanaimo in September 1944. '

Some of the events of the first.severa1 months following the signing of the first

industry agreement have been recounted in detail to demonstrate that the District leaders

were concerned with more than just victory over fascism in this period. Speeches and

resolutions on "production for victory" and solidarity with the cause of the United Natibns

were iaved for the convention floor. Executive and quarterly council meetings were taken

up with the more mundane business of the hiring hall, wage ceilings, negotiations with the --

war labour boards, worrying about sub-contractors and the like. Jn general, the business

of the union wah union-business. That was even the case in the area - -

Following through with the 1944 convention -resolution,

establish political action committees in each local and sub-local

particul~legislative gains of significance to workers, and to

of political action.,

the District sought to

i; order to agitate for \ .

press for a policy of

supporting candidates of any party best representative of trade union interests. The latter

came in response to the failure of negotiations with the British Columbia section of the

CCF for a unity party of progressi,ve labour and farmer organization^.^^ In particular, the

District Political Action Committee agitated for changes to the labour code, wartime wage

controls, and to the master and servants act so as to permit check-off of dues; for

unemployment insurance coverage for loggers, health insurance, old-age pensions,

\

installment tax payments; as well as the more general safeguarding of labour's right to

organize, -str&e,'picket and bargain collectively. The District Board affirmed'tl\~ right of all

union members to join any lawful political party and participate to the extent of accepting

nomination for office. During 1944 political action committees were established in each of -

the eight local uni'orls and in several sub-locals. The District undertook to send out political

action bulletins on, a regular basis.dea1ing with such subjects as the labour cede, wage

' control and health insurance.32 The extent of, the political action programme in practice

cannot be gauged from the enthusiastic pronouncements of District officers. Nevertheless, .r 4

there is evidence that some committees, such as one in local 1-80, held meetings on the

subject of labour's legislative demands.33 The main effort was concentrated at the District \ level where the policy was to focus the struggle to further the interests of the working class

in the parliamentary arena during a period when sig&ficant gains were not to be attained

through collective bargaining. Beyond LPP rivalry with the CCF, intensified after the P

- I:

latter's endorsemen1 by the CCL in 1943-44, the District's political action programme had

legitimate mde union goals. Some of these such as' amendment of wage controls,

installment tax payments, and unemployment insurance $or loggers, were attained during

the war peris8_24

While the main focus of union activity was.on the coast, the war years injected new

\ life into the stagnant lumber sector of the interior. District interest in organizing this

industry was natural given its proximity, and the possibility that substandard wages and

conditions there could act as a drag on the coast industry. Up to 1944 the interior had not- 8

been a majcti concern, but when International headquarters challenged District authority to

organize the area,its significance was immediately heightened and union recognition there

. . k a m e a major issue during 1945-46. '

Across the interior generally, the war years brought a tremendous growth in

production. Log output nearly doubled, while on the coast it remained stable.35 The most d

dynamic region was the Kootenays, where log output rose steadily from 136 million to 233

million board feet between 194 1 and 1944. Prince George production was more sporadic,

jumping dramatically in 1943, t b falling back somewhat the following year. The

Kamloops district showed flat but steady growth in

Just why the Cranbrook area was chosen as the first point of attack most likely

relates to a basic history of working class solidarity in the area. The east ~ m ' & n a ~ s , as is

well known, had a skialist tradition embedded in the coal mining communities of Fernie,

Coal Creek and Mjchel. The development of these Crow's Nest mining towns gave rise to

a vibrant lumber i n d & y in the first decade or so of the twentieth century.37 Cranbrook

had, in the post-World War One era, been one of two ipterior administrative centres of the

old Lumber Workers' Industrial Union along with Prince George.38 During the first half

of the 1930s, the communist-led Mine Workers' Union of Canada made inroads into

Michel and Corbin as coal mining radicalism sphled over the Crow's Nest Pass from union +=

centres in Alberta. Most notably, Michel sported a local "Karl Mam Park," scene of

working class festivities on May Day, 1934.39 Little can be said asyet, however about

lumberworkers in the Kootenays during the 1920s and 1930s. According to the IWA's

own historian of the day, A1 Parkin, the relative dearth of large operations and the great

distances between the small scattered camps and mills kept interior woodworkers

unorganized and isolated from the mainstream of the labour movement. They failed to

maintain "any semblance of unionism during the 1920-30 period." Not since 1923, wrote

Parkin in his 1947 review of IWA achievements, when the W made its last stand in I

Cranbrook and Prince George regions, had the interior woodworkers enjoyed any form of

union ~ rgan iza t ion .~~ As a result they were ruthlessly exploited by the operators who were + ".

well organi;ed into northem and southern interior lumbermen's associations. A nine hour

working day was standard, wages ran far behind those on the coast and conditions in

logging camps generally remained primitive.41 As Parkin exclaim&, "Worst of all, men

still packed their own blankets between jobs, twen ty-five* years after loggers on the Coast R

had forced the employer to provide clean sheets and blanket~."~2

From very meagre beginnings then, in 1944, but building on a solid working class

base, local 1-405 quickly grew in size. By the 1945 International convention it was listed

as having 320 members, making it larger than 14 of 6 e locals in District Five, and six of

the locals in District TWO.^^ The organizational gains made by the District Council in the

east Kootenays acted as a catalyst. In the spring of 1945 the District Executive undertook

to launch a major organizing drive across the interior. It recommended to George Brown,

International Director of Organization, the transfer of three experienced coast industry

organizers, Bergren, Wke Freylinger and Tom MacDonald, to various points in the interior

as soon as possible given the extreme seasonality of the industry there.44

It is at this point, that the main confrontation with the International Board occurred.

George Brown made it clear that he intended to use the issue of the organizers as a means

to further the International attack on what he considered to be the politically-dominated

programme of the Dismct Council. I-Iis aim was to 'weaken the District Council's hold in

British Columbia by fostering oppositional blocs in the interior locals. As Brown told the

1945 International convention in defending his organizational strategy: 1

I

My reason for not sending t h e w a n d I made it perfectly clear, there was no attempt to beat around the bush in this matier in dealing with the British Columbia officials-was that I was not going to send these particular men into the interior, because it was unorganized territory; it was a part of the country where this Union question had not been raised before, and I wanted to get that section of British Columbia educated on a program of wages, hours and working conditions, and not on any program in the interests of any political party, regardless of whch party that might be.45

Brown further justified his move on the grounds that the three men he selected, Mike

Sekora for Kamloops, Ralph New for the south Okanagan and Princeton, and Nick Kaptey

for Kelowna, had all lived in the interior and allegedly had links with a lot of the people

there based on language and n a t i ~ n a l i t y . ~ ~ To facilitate International control oirer the

c

interior, the Department

established by the RWLB

of Organization proposed six different locals based on areas

f a determination of wage scale ceilings. The interior as a whole

was divided by the board into north (Prince George) and south. The latter was sub-divided

into five "areas corresponding to which five locals were established: Kamloops (1-417),

west Kootenay or Nelson (1-425), east Kootenay or Cranbrook (1-405). north Okanagan

or Kelowna (1-423), and south Okanagan or Princeton (1-41 8).47

British Columbia was already, in 1944, the second largest District in the

International, close behind Oregon's District Five (the bulwark of conservatism in the

IWA) and still had plenty of growing to do.48 If the anti-communist International could

gain control over the interior it could possibly capture a bloc of District One votes, and

forestall a left-wing challenge to the International Executive from the combined forces of

Districts One and the left-leaning north-west Washington District Two. By breaking the

interior up into small locals, the International hoped to exert greater control over the

membership,@ a tactic used during the white bloc capture of the International from the left m

during 1940-41 under the guiding hands of Adolph Germer and the C10.50 Indeed, since I

Harold Pritchett had been permanently barred from the United States, and the 1941'

International convention had passed its famous motion banning Communist Party members

from the union, the main hope of the left wing in the IWA rested on organizational gains to

be made in British C ~ l u m b i a . ~ ~ After the breakthrough on the Queen Charlotte Islands ia

1943 there was clearly good reas for the new regime in Portland to be concerned.

There were two levels of pute between the District and the International in regard

to Brown's actions. At the political level, there was the question involving his assumptions

that LPP politics took priority over, and skewed, the execution of a propgr trade union J

programme. Questioning the integrity of the British Columbia leaders thus provided him *

with justification for disregarding the recommendations of the District Executive,

something for which he was roundly condemned at a special Dismct Council meet i~g in

May.52 The more substantial issue involved the abilities of Brown's men to do the job,

and the extent to which intra-union politics was going to interfere with the broader District

programme of consolidating its hold in the interior prior - to the 1946 industry-wide '

negotiations.

The ~ i s t r i c t Council took the high roadiin this regard. When a recommendation

came to the Executive from elected officers in Karnloops to use some of the District funds

now- being set aside for organizational work in the interior to oppose Brown's appointees, -,

the District Executive took the position that rather the money should be used to take up the

slack and repair the weaknesses that Brown's policy imposed on the interior.53 Under the

direction of the District Council, and with the aid of the International negotiating fund, the

PCLB undertook a wage s w e y of the entire interior region in preparation for industry-

wide negotiation^.^^ The District threw its weight into the battle for the eight-hour day for \

interior workers, as government hearings got underway in a number of centres. And

during the summer of 1945, Ernie Dalskog was sent into the Prince George a r e a h a

newly-purchased Dismct car in response to calls for organization th&e.55

Like the east Kootenays, the Prince George district had a militant working class

disposition. Between 1919 and 1922, the Lumber Workers' Industrial Union had made

considerable organizational inroads in the logging camps, though it was stymied by the

more conservative farmer-loggers and the paternalism of the mill operators in the small

centres along the rail line. A declining economy, combined with internal uriik problems /

/

sealed the fate of the union dnve by 1924.56 I

While trade unionism did not revive in the moribund forest industry during the

1930s, there was a significant Communist party presence in the area amongst the

unemployed prior to the disbandment of the Workers' Unity League. After that, local

militants became involved in a variety of political organizations in the area.57 As Gordon

Hak observes, during the 1930s "the communists found their strength among the same

group of people that had been attracted to the Industrial Workers of the World and the

Lumber Workers' Industrial Union ten years earlier." Its constituency was the immigrant

population from Scandinavia and eastern Europe. 'Wad there been any substantial activity

in the.East Line forest industry," Hak observes, "communists would have been aggressive w.

union organizers ..."5* The local CCF, on the other hand, represented farmers, small -

businessmen and railway workers with steady jobs.59 The region was a natural one for

..-- District Council One.

During the dismal 1930s,'two of the dominant operators in the dismit consolidatid

their position by absorbing some of tke weaker ones. By 1939, Roy Spurr and Don

McPhee controlled the three largest operations, Sinclair Spruce, Eagle Lake Sawmills and

Longworth Lumber, accognting for 60 percent of the district's p r o d ~ c t i o n . ~ ~ with the

revival of the forest economy during the war, exbectations of the workers began to rise.

Conditions in the camps had improved with the shortage of men, but the exam le of the T IWA on the coast raised even greater expectations in an area where conditions, wbges and

hours were still substandard compared to the, coastal i ndu~ t ry .~ l According to local

historian, Ken Bernsohn, one worker at Sinclair Milk with TWW experience told the men:,

"Boys, you don't want the Industrial Workers of "the World. What you need is a 0

+ responsible union that management will respect, instead of making the bosses worry about

revolution.. .62" Until 1945, District One was unable t; oblige. But, that year, when the -

RWLB refused wage increases to employees of both Eagle Lake and SinclaiqMills, both

groups invited the IWA in to organize.63 Ernie Dalskog made rapid progress. By early

July he had five operations ready for certification.64 By the end of the month, local 1-424

was chartered with over 350 members and newly-elected officers. Dalskog reported that

though camp conditions were terrible, the wage question arid hours of work were the main I

I issues. Though the largest mills were organized, there were inany smaller ones remaining.

Because of the vast area involved, Dalskog recommended an additional o r g a n i ~ e r . ~ ~ 3y

the time of the 1945 International convention in November, 1-424 had become the largest

interior local with 450 members, over 100 more than the combined membership of

Kamloops, Nelson, Princeton and Ke10wna.~~

, - "., In Karnloops, Sekora had m?e some headway, signing 179 members in spite of a

particularly strident anti-union group 0 f ' \ ~ m ~ l o ~ e r s . 6 ~ The two Okanagan locals, where * .

New and Kapte had been assigned, had only 90 members between them. By 1946 the two t

had been collapsed into one local, and wiih help from District organizer Me1 Fulton,

membership had increased to over 300.68

, Without much hope of penetrating the regions of the interior with a more solid

working class base and. tradition, George Brown and his anti-communist cohorts h

chosen to concentrate their efforts in the weaker, conservative areas of the Okanagan an

Kamloops, with ratfier little success. In the Okanagm valley, the ecohdhic importance f 4 the fruit growing industry, a major corisumer sf vaod product had served to depres "\ forest industry wages, particularly in the Verr:on.,Kelowna ,area where t!~e woodworker

were the lowest paid of all the interior sub-dismcts. in both mi!!isg and logging.@ he\ employment of Japanese labourers deportedhfrom the coast helped the operators in this \

the Prince George area, as a result of hearings held throughout the interior in which the 1

r~ -~a rd .~O Along with the mill operators, the fmi! grc-ders put up a strong opposition at the \ ' \

1 . IWA was actively involved, the Board of Industrial Relations cancelled a regulation 2P

hearings concerning the implementation of the eight-hour day, saying it would raise the

price of box shooks and reduce pr~cluct ion.~~ Despite similar opposition from operators in 6

permitting liours in excess of eight per day and 48 per week without premium pay.72

The campaign for the shorter work day was closely tied into the District's . 8

negotiating strategy of working to equalize conditions between the coast and the interior.73

A victory on hours of work also helped speed the Dismct on its way toward the unification

of negotiations throughout the interior. The main mechanism used to prepare the ground

for unified negotiations was the comprehensive wage survey of all northern and southern

interior regions conducted by the PCLB during the summer of 1945. The objectives of the

survey, accordmg to a memo from the National Labour Bureau, (the parent company of the

PCLB), to Claude Ballard in June 1945 was twofold: to obtain a picture of the wage - -

\

+

L ' . . - 152- * 9

' smcture in the interior indusqy; and to prepare all relevant data which might assist the

union.in its fonhcoming negotiations with Both the ihterior operators and S t u d Research.

OG of-these negotiations, a c c d n g to the Labour Bureau, would come a joint or okatteral

application to the RWLB for equalization o[ interior rates across the region, and the

eradication of the difference between coast and interior r a t e ~ . ~ 4 In this respect the interior

survey project would protide a striking counterpoint to the i n e p ~ e s s of the International's

strategy of splin!ering the interior up into several small locals. That strategy played rigk

into the hands of the southern operators association which persisted in its insistence that

negotiations be conducted at the level of each operation.75 Such a procedure would have 7

?

I

made equali2atiorrof rates next to impossible. While George Brown pursued his political

agenda, DiStritit Council One qet about using collective bargaining as a tool to consolidate

its organizaconal hold in the interior by wiping out wage differentiali and closing the gap

between the interior and the coast. The long-held Didtrict strategy of signed union

agreements as a prerequisite for completing the task of organization was once again put into

With the wage survey completed, delegates from six interior locals, along with

international organizers and District Executive members met in a Wage and Policy

Conference in Kamloops on 23-24 ~eptembe; 1945. The purpme of the meeting,

according to Pritchett's opening remarks, was to establish unity of effort among all interior

locals in the drive to obtain contracts. He emphasized the necessity of agreeing on uniform -

wage demands to be negotiated through a centralized bargaining smcture, with the aim in

mind of lifting as many jobs as possible out of the common labow classification. Based on e

the PCLB survey, a subcommittee met and then submitted to the conference ceiling rates

* for each occupation considered necessary to the inqustry regardless of whether that

&cupation was listed on the RWLB schedules for the north "\ south. In addition, a bssic 4 *

rate for common labour of 67 cents was set &oss the interior. It was agreed to adopt tjre

1 '!

\ !

1945 coast agreement, with some minor points of difference, as the basis for an industry-

wide collective agreement.76 g

-. -.

The District brief, drafted in conjunction with the PCLB, was ~ubrn i j ed~ to the.

R WLB in Oc t0ber.~7 However, through November the Sou them Interior umber men's

' Association, affiliated with the CMA, continued to resist centralized ~egotiations. f i l k s

proceeded on a plant-by-plant basis with little success .reported at , Penticton, Lumby,

~ranb'rook and Eagle Lake Sawmills at G i s ~ o m e . ~ ~ The District Executive recommended '

that locals propose interim agreements to expire 15 Marc 1946 in conformity with the

coast agreement; and apply for conciliation and arbitration in each case as negotiations

became d e a d l o ~ k e d . ~ ~ The stage was being prepared for a province-wide confrontation

. with the industry in 1946 which, it was hoped, would result in one master agreement for all O =

&,. British Columbia woodworkers.

- .

As District One delegates headed to the International convention in Eugene, Oregon .

in November 1945, they had only three interior agreements in hand.80. Nevertheless, by = ' , '

adopting a strategy of tying organizational gains into the real iriddtrial relations struggle for ' I-

/ i

'\ befier wage+ and conditions, a snuggle over which rhe District still maintained a large

i \. 9 3

degrkof autonbqly, the District Executive was able successfully to counter the attempts of \

L <

George Brown todnve a wedge between it and the interior woodworkers. The District had

establish& a firm hold in t!le most significant interior lumbering centres, Prince George b?

/

and the Kootenays, areas with a history of militant trade unionism. The Intemational was .

left to try to -tap iilto the much more conservative and less dynamic lumbering area of

Kamloops and the Okanagan, with few 9

positive results. ;

In I

As pointed'o~t~in chapter two, the economy of the wartime lumber industry, in *.

particular the labour market, provided both opportunities and obstacles to union organizing. 3

Similarly the rr~ixed.performance of the industry during the 1939-45 period provided both

- 154-

opportunities and obstacles

put forward by the union during this ,

reached in xnewal of the collective

pegormance during the war

years. A brief review follows.

During the fxst twoL years 1941, lumber production on the

coast hit record levels, topping three billion board feet for the f i s t time, as both the

Canadian and British markets absorbed as much as could be produced. In 1941, British

orders were cut in half, but exports to the United States more than doqbled, offsettirig 65 B

percent of the loss. Nevertheless, the total coastal cut dropped from 3.32 to 3.26 billion ' feet. In 1942, it dropped another half a billion feet, and a further 200 million in each ~f the

following years. The timber cut for the 1942-44 period was actually below that of 1936-

38, and about the same as 1926-28.81

The reasons for this reduction in c h are many and varied. For one thing, the boom i -

in exports to the United States was shortlived, covering only the 1941-42 period of wai- 4

preparedness and the immediate post-Pearl Harbour escalation of military activities. In

1943-44, exports dropped back to 1939-40 levels and below.'82 In part, this drop was S

related to an increase in British req&ements for 1943, and the imposition of strict quota

allocations imposed by the ~ i m k e r Cont~-01.~~ But in total, demald from these two key

markets in the 1943-45 qeriod was down considerably. Secondly, what demand there was

seriously taxed the existing manpower supplies of the industry. canada's war effort drew - more and more men from the industry into active service in the closing years of battle (see

chapters two and four above). Thirdly, because of the nature of its markets, the British

Columbia industry experienced much greater dislocation as a result of the war than did the @

industry in Washing'ton and Oregon. Historically, British Columbia lumbermen had been

muth more dependent on bffshore sales than their United States c o ~ n t e r p a n s . ~ ~ That

tendency intensified during the 1930s under the trade agreement with Britain. From 1933-

39 over two-thirds of the production of coast sawmills was exported, compared to less than

10 percent for Washington and Oregon. As a result, the loss of overseas trade during the

war hit British Columbia producers much harder. Of the o<er 30 overseas destinations to

which the British Columbia coast industry was shipping in- 1939, only 11 were active

markets in 1944. In particular, the loss of the European, Central and South American,

Indian and Japanese markets made a big impact. The Canadian and American markets took

up some of the slack, but even then domestic prices were fairly rigidly controlled, and were

considerably lower than US prices.85 The following chart indicates that British Columbia * c

production declined steadily from 1940 to 1944, losing a full 20 percent from the wartime

peak. production for each of the last three years of the war was below that for each of the

three years pre'cedir~g the war. In Washington and Oregon production figures followed a

different pattern, climbing to peak in 1941, but staying significantly above pre-war totals

until slumping in 1943. Fourthly, the traditional American market for unmanufactured C

logs, which historically helped to keep log prices in British Columtiia buoyan\was

curtailed by the- Timber Conrml in the in teresk of Canada's war effort.*6

As an indication of the difficulties the industry as a @hole was facing, in order to

stimulate production in particular on the part of the smaller, non-integrated operations, the - cp

federal government, beginning in 1943, took several measures either to reduce taxes or

increase prices. After meeting with representatives of the various branches of the industry

i n ' Vancouver. Timber Controller A.H. Williamspn announced a special depletion

allowance of betweerrone and two dollars per thousand board feet for tax purposes. In

order-that this tax break would be of some significance, the price of all tags was raised one

dollar per thousand, with a special increase of $4.50-for peeler logs used in plywood, of % ,

p.micular imponance i n the war effon. The ceang prices on lumber were kpt in place, but

the govemmeni undertook to refund the increased cost of logs in order to maintain the

standard profits of log-buying mills.87 That arrangement

government, under prodding from Williamson, recognized \

lasted until August, when the

the.contention'- of the industry

Comaxison of Lumber Production and - .

0

. . nnsh Columbia (Coast Onld

Production Exports 9% of Production Exports % of Year MBM MBM Prod. M MBM Prod,

Source: Forest Industrial Relations Brief to Conciliation Board, 8 August 1949, Pritchett Papers, box 7, file 1.

that lumber prices did not constitute a factor in the cost-of-living structure. The subsidy \.. was discontinued and coastal lumber producers were allowed to increase their prices up to a

maximum of four dollars per thouswd in the underpriced Canadian market.88 The new

ceiling prices would benefit all operators, both independent and integral=.-

In spite of these measures, overall lumber production in the Vancouver Forest

District declined by 225 mifIion board feet i n 1943, while the total value of lumber

produced in the province dropped by over 6600,000.89 In April 1944 Williamson once .&

again ~ e d to stimulate log production in the declining independent logging sector by

announcing a $1.50 per thousand increase for open market logs.%) Tl;e BCLA claimed the

boost was insufficient to establish an appropriate relationship between log and lumber

prices.91 In order for manufacturers to absorb the increased log costs without piercing the

newly established domestic price ceiling, the quota structure for lumber sales was adjusted

9 to allow a five percent increase to the supposedly more lucrative overseas markets.g2

Given the difficulties in reaching these markets this was a rather h q o w gesture. Neither

overall production nor overseas shipments responded to these changes J

above). But the cumulative effect of the 1943-44 price increases on the coast help

the total provincial value of lumber production from $66 million to $81 million in 1944. - \

For various reasons, however, this jump did not represent a corresponding jump in profits

on an industry-wide basis.

43 ' First of all, the industry, as an essential wartime Industry, was subject to an excess 1

profits tax as a means of enforcing wage and price controls, and preventing profiteering at

the expense of the federal government, the chief procurer of war materials. For example,

during 1942-44 H.R. MacMdlan Export paid an average excess profits tax of $525, 508 B

per ye&-. Total taxes in 1945, the last year of full excess profits tax, were $2.49 million on

a revenue of $9.89 rnilli0n.9~ Canadian Western Lumber declared in its financial statement

for 1944 net earnings of $2.52 million, and net profit after taxes of $235,407. Its excess

profits tax for 1944 was $1.47 million, though up to 20 percent was refundable and

became part of earnings.94 Under the Excess Profits Tax regulations, the basic period for

determination of standard pmfits was, 1936-39 which the industry claimed was not the most

favourable one for it.95 In recognition of the complaints of the industry the federal

government granted a special depletion allowance for 1943. (Similarly, for the 1940

taxation year, a special allowance of one-third the cost of standing timber cut had been 1

granted.)% While there is not a complete picture for the industry as a whole of the effect of

taxes on wartime prduction and profits, an indication can be gleaned from the intensity

with which lumbermen,' during 1944-45, lobbied for a proper and permanent timber /

depletion allowance such as had been introduced in the united States under the so-called B

Bailey amendment of February 1944.5"

The case for such an allowance was based on the argument that timber holdings

acquired in previous years were seriously undervalued, and a properrevaluation should P

have been permitted for taxation purposes. Looking only at the years from 1942, when , -

I . detailed figures were first published, rhrGugh 1945, the average stumpage price per

thousand board feet received on government timber sales in the Vancouver Forest District

increased between 35 cents and $1.05 per thousand board feet (see Table 3).

Price Per Thousand Board Feet

.. . Vancouver Forest District Timber Snleg

Doudas Fir

$2.29

1-943 2.47 2.28 2.89

1944 2.44 2.82 2.14

1945 2.64 2.79 2.63

Source: "Reports of the Forest Branch (1942, 1943, 1944, 1945).

The increase was much more dramatic on the larger more desirable tracts already held

privately since well before the war. Stumpage values were considered a cost of production

and so helped push up log and lumber prices. For the larger timber-holding companies,

cutting stands purchased years before at rock-bottom prices, this so-called increase cost

was not an actual cost at the time of cutting and so they reaped the benefit of their early

acquisition. Nevertheless, that part of profit based on stumpage values was treated as part

% of general revenue and taxed accordingly, rather than as a non-taxable capital gain as the

industry would have liked. The only depletion allowed was on the actual cost of timber

when it was bought. The industry argued that since timber cut would have to be replaced at -

- 159-

current prices, a full depletion allowance based on replacemeht costs should have been

permitted.98 In fact; there was an incentive for timber holders to sell standing timber

in order to realize the full tax-free capital gain, and then purchase tracts at higher cost

in order to get the full benefit of a higher capital cost allowance when timber-was cut. ,JIe

sale, in the spring of 1944, of Victoria Lumber and Manufacturing Company to E.P.

Taylor, and of Canadian Forest Products with its vast Nimpkish Valley holdings of four

billion feet of the finest virgin timber on the .Island to the Czechoslovakian Pick-Bentley.

partnership, were both precipitated by the existing taxation/depletiqn allowance structure.

Prof i tMde on the sale of this timber far exceebed what could have been earned by cutting

it. The purchasers, on the other hand, could base depletion on the new market price paid,

making lumbering operations much more profitable. The sub$tantial wartime timberland

purchases of MacMillan, BSW and other large concerns were certainly facilitated by the

existing taxation arrangements.9

~ h h e some operators sold out their stands to realize profits, others continued to log

their stands to full capacity to meet war demands with the resultant loss of profits to income

and excess profits taxes. There is adequate evidence, however, to state with some certainty

that several major logging operators were not producing to capacity. Norman Lee, former

Inspector of Taxation for the dominion government in the Vancouver Forest District told

the Sloan koyal Commission in 1944, some of the larger firms were holding back "in order

to conserve their timber for future use in the hope that the taxation situation after the war

will be more favourable to them."lw According to i n NSS expert on the coast industry

who reported to Director F.W. Smelts in March 1945, "the reason for the small output of

, logs in comparison with the large number of men employed, is not due to the poor quality

of the men, but rather to the fact that the big operators, at least, are deliberately working

such stands of their timber as are most inaccessible, and most uneconornizal to work. The

reason for this of course, is obvious, and lies in price ceilings and excess profits taxes."

7

! I

For this reason, ~rnhlts, after meeting with both IWA and industry officials, dismissed the

BCLA claims of ddstic shortages of qualified efficient labow in the w o o d ~ . ~ ~ l

In the coursk of the meeting with IWA leaders, Jack Greenall reported to the NSS I

officials that several union men at CWL's Fraser Mills operation had already complained to I

the Timber ~ontrojler with respect to a threatened shutdown of the mill. They accused

CWL of "deliberately aggravating the log shortage by their methods of logging; they

claimed they were passing good stands of timber and logging timber not of the best I

quality."l"

All of this evidence supports the argument that there was a deliberate prod;ction

slowdown in the industry, especially in 1944-45, on account of excess taxation and

insufficient allowafice for depletion. The marked increased value of production from 1943

%. i to 1946,,at a time when total cut remaned stagnant, reflected in part the increased costsiof

loggmg poorer quqity and more inaccessible stands of timber. While some of the lar

concerns benefittdd from the wartime conditions through the buying and sellin$.of

timberland s n blqc, for many operators federal tax regulations retarded rather t an 1 encouraged expansion of production. I

k t A production slowdown was not the industry's only response to , the I

I h

taxation/depletion problem. Beginning in April' 1944, shortly after the termination o the / 1943 depletion allowance, the BCLA took the leading role in planning a dominion

conference of fore$( industry associations in Winnipeg. The aim of the conference as to y.1 address the issuqslof the federal tax structure and timber depletion allowance

mining and oil ind smes as models.*03 The Winnipeg Conference, held in May,

together 15 indus associations from the British Columbia coast and interior, A1 rta, 9 k P Saskatchewan, ~ + i t o b a , Ontario, Quebec and the Maritimes, as well as the pulp and aper '

industry and the qanadian Lumberman's A s s ~ c i a t i o n . ~ ~ Consensus was reached on a

proposal similar t the Bailey Amendment of ahnual valuations of the cut removed from 4 each operation and a tax-free allowance to provide the difference between acquisition and

replacement costs. Moreover, a new association of associations was formed, known as the

Permanent Committee, and later the National Council of Forest Industries, to continue to

represent the industry's case to the federal governrnent.lo5 The BCLA endorsed a two cent

per thousand foot levy on member companies if needed to assist in the lobby effort.106

The British Columbia industry associations agreed to an initial contribution of $4000.lO7

The BCLA's L.R. Andrews took a leading role in the fall of 1944 in prep&ng the brief for

presentation to the federal government in January 1945. log But no action was taken

through the course of 1945, and by 1946 the excess prohts tax was in the process of being

dismantled.

- i In addition to problems with markets and taxation, the industry also suffered from a

reduction in productivity linked to problems in the labour market. While the NSS med to

deflect industry complaints regarding manpower by pointing to an intentional slowdown by 7

several large firms, that device did not obviate the very real pressures that war exerted on

the supply of experienced and skilled labour. During the course of the 1946 contract "

arbitration hearings, both the industry and union spokesmen agreed that despite technical

improvements such as the power saw, trucks and tractors, productivity declined during the

war years. I n other words, from the point of view of the industry, a disproportionate

amount of the increased value of production was due to increased costs, and a s,

disproportionate percentage of increased costs due to inefficiency rather than to an actual

increase in wages paid. According to Stuart Research, labour costs per thousand feet of a .

1 *

logs produced in BritisWColumbia increased by 107 percent between 1939 and 1944, while

total log production was actually lower 'in the latter year than in the former. The average

cost of production rose from $4.74 to $8.70 per-thousand. A similar increase was reported

in the manufacture of lumber. At the same time the average weekly wage in the industry

increased) by only 52 percent. Thus, Stuart argued, a substantial portion of increased

pduc t ioo costs was due to inefficiency.l1•‹ Stuart bointed his finger at a "very substantial -

of job classifications," at the same time as the quality of labour to fill those jobs

- declined."l The union researchers agreed that wartime conditions such as job upgrading,

a high percentage of overtime, and the Queen Charlotte Islands bonus, had caused overall

productivity to decl$e.l12 They might-also have mentioned that union organization and the

signing of collective agreements permitted employees collectively to work at a more

reasonable pace, without fear of employer reprispl.

Other difficulties arose which were related only indirectly to wartime conditions.

One of the most critical production bottlenecks was in the area of falling and bucking.

According to information given by veteran logger and union organizer Ernie Dalskog to the

Regional Director of NSS at a meeting in March 1945, the shortage was not entirely due to

enlistment. Over the past decade few men had been trained for that kind of work which

required a "very strong constitution." As earnings depended on the amount of timber

felled, "young fellows do not find it attractive. It tears down a man very rapidly. Very few

have gone in for that kind of work recently and the older fellows are getting worn out."

According to Dalskog, most of the falling was done by either Scandinavians or people from

the Balkans, "and with no immigration they are not getting these people for the woods."113

Industry efforts to overcome this bottleneck through the introduction of power saws

were not terribly effective as of 1945. Existing equipment still proved to be costly, heavy?

cumbersome and unreliable, particularly with the lack of trained operators available, giving

little consistent benefit in the way of reduced costs. Some companies tried to convert their

falling crews into subcontractors who would become responsible for purchase and

maintenance of equipment, a move the union resented strenuously.114

To sum up then, the economic condition of the industry as a whole in 1944 was by

no means uniformly sound. After the initial wartime boom of 1940-42, a series of factors

conspired to curb production and profits. Some companies with accumulated surpluses

and large timber holdings were not terribly disturbed by this trend. Nevertheless, several

of the largest operators in 1942 had considered the threat posed by the IWA serious enough

to,install R.V. Stuart as industrial relations representative for the industry, anqto put up

\

$10,000 each to get his agency off the ground. Some f m s , such as MacMillan's, opened

up industrial relations departments of their own as we11.115 While the-IWA was busy

consolidating its hold over the industry's workforce, Stuart Research set out to sign up as <

many of the coastal operators as would join. So concerned were the large f m s to present .,

a solid front to the IWA that Stuart offered to waive the subscription fee in order to get

companies to join. In fact, so general was the desire of the companies not to be

"whipsawed" and to estgblish a successful industrial relations arm for the i n d u s ~ f h a h o

one took Stuart up on the offer, even though, according to J.M. Billings, the smaller

- + operators "yelled like hell."l l 6 By 1945, 123 companies had signed up with Stuart.l17

The rapid consolidation of the industry behind Stuart Research Service was facilitated not . .

only by the fear of taking on the IWA independently in the increasingfY more sophisticated

-arena of contract negotiation and arbitration. It was also an index of an industry far from

bullish on its prospects under the conditions of wartime markets, taxation, price regulation,

and costs of production. Thus, when the union and Stuart Research met in 1945 to renew

the master agreement, the industry was not in a mood or a position to.give much away in

terms of wages. Huddled together under the protective umbrella of Stuart and behind the

leadership of a few key integrated giants, the industry, having just lost the first round of the

industrial relations battle, was not prepardfor further concessions, particularly monetary

ones. On the other hand, the signing of a master agreement, while a major concession after

over 20 years of resistance,118 promised a certain degree of industrial stability. As the ,

BCLA &rectors rep~rted to their 1944 annual meeting, "the initial agreement brought about

little in the way of changed conditi~ns,"~ '9 but provided the standard grievance/arbitration

procedures which would prevent work disruptions over minor disputes. Lumbermen could

now turn their attention more fully to fighting with the government (at times with union /

assistance) over the terms of wartime production, and to the business of selling lumber.

The objective condtions of the industry coincided with the IWA7s post-recognition agenda

of consolidation, resulting in a temporary truce in the hard-fought industrial relations war. /

IV

The draft agreement adopted by District delegates at the Nanaimo negotiations

conference in September 1944 must be interpreted in l&ht of the l j ~ t a t j o n s imposed by e

- *--- QP--- - ---.- government regulations, by the economic condition of the industry, the primacy of war

production and the union's overall agenda of consolidation. In this context~what would

appear to be the key demands, a modest eight cent per hour increase with a 75 cent per hour

minimum rate and reduction of job classifications, union shop and check-off, and premium

pay after 44 hours per week, were not put forward as issues over which the union was

prepared to fight the employer to the point of job action. They would be pursued as far as

possible, bur, in the final analysis, negotiations on these issues during wartime were really

with the state rather than with the employer.I2* According to the advice of the PCLB, the I I

RWLB, under PC 9384 as amended, could grant a wage increase where it was considered

fair and reasonable, if the increased scale did not exceed August 1939 wages by more than "

the maximum cost-of-living bonus accumulated since that date. But since in almost every

IWA operation the wage hlke, including cost-of-living bonus since August 1939 had been

equal to or greater than the amount of the haximum cdst-of-living bonus, the IWA, like

most unions, was unable to proceed under this provision. Neither could the union, as a

whole, hope to win an across-the-board concession on the basis of a gross inequality or

The Pernand for a 44-hour week, according to Marcuse of the PCLB, depended,

under PC 9$84, on the employers' agreeing to the adoption of an Incentive Produc'tion I

Bonus Plan,: to be administered by a joint labour-management production committee, that

would ensure no increase in the established unit production costs as a result of a reduction

in the regular work week.122 "The workers may have all the moral and ethical arguments

in the world," Marcuse advised, "but against the inflexible restrictions of the Wartime L

Wages Control Order, PC 9381 they have been shown to be generally ~navai l ing ," '~~ even '

3

though 32 collective agreements in British Columbia already provided for 44 hours or less

with t&e and one-half for overtirne.lN .,

At the Nanaimo conference, Morgan spoke of the need to adopt a'"practical"

a programme, one that "we will not have to back down from.': On the question of hours of L B

work, he noted, some operators were trying to shorten their hours of operatich anyway to

preserve stands of timber "pending removal of the present scale of taxes." Ttse union did "%

not necessarily support such a procedure considering the important task of producing '

lumber for post-war construction. At the same time Morgan acknowledged a demand in

many operations for a shorter week. The compromise recommended by the District leaders

was that in view of the vital need for increased lumber production to =build devastated

countries, "we can hardly campaign for less production now but rather for production

committees and prcnuum pay for Saturday afternoon and Sunday work." This position

translated into a rather ambiguous proposal calling for regular hours of work consisting of

six consecutive eight-hour days, with time and one-half paid.for any time worked in excess

of 44 hours. This proposal, by accepting 48 hours as the regular work week,.undermined

its own provisions for overtime after 44 hours. Moreover, very little serious consideration

was given to the proposal for production committees which, as written, asked only for * 0

agreement and support in principle from management, without any commitment to establish. .

the machinery or timetable for their%ctual implementation. The IWA, having just recently

won recognition, and having as yet still only a tenuous hold in many operations, was not in

a strong position to push for industry-wide adoption of a joint production committee

'scheme.125 el

, In sum then, the demands for an across-the-board increase in wages, and a

reduction in hours, even given the support of scientific facts, were not central to the .

collecting bargaining process in 1945. Central to the programme proposed by Morgan

were stabilization of wage rates, strengthening the vacation clause and seniority provisions,

a second-shift differential, a medical insurance plan and a number of proposals that would

enhance e recognition and legitimacy of the union. As the negotiating agenda unfolded, it j T I

i i came to f cus on items that required, and were amenable to joint union-management i I I 5 -

cooperation, either in making presentations to the NWLB, or in administering the j '2 !

E agreement across the industry, rather than in areas of confrontation and potential conflict. L L I

Consolidation was the name of the game in 1945. I I

L

, In such an atmoiphere, contentious issues such as the union-shop and check-off, 1 L

which by definition had priority of place on the union's long-term agenda, had to be kept in ! .\

I

of future negot iat i~s , while at the same time downplayed in \ I i

the interests of gaining a settkment. In order to achieve this balancing act, the District \ .% I 1

officers rnastcrfully mchestrated the business of the Eighth Annual District Convention, \ . I

held 6-7 ~ L d a r y in PO* ~ l b e r n i , by shifting the union's focus frdm industrial to political .\ I I

action. As the officers told the delegates, the employers were failing to live up to their side \ 1' ..

of the wartime bargain by flatly refusing the unio~. shop, which the ~istrict'recpired in \ " 4

order properly to discharge its heavy responsibilities under the proposed agreement-

elimination of strikes, enforcement of safety conditions and acceptance of arbitration ,

wards. "Everything humanly possible must be done," the officers urged, "to include the

just demands of o w membership in the 1945 industry-wide contract." This could best. be ,-

accomplished by way of negotiation, and, if necessary, conciliation, "mobilizing full public

opinion in support of our just proposals and adhering strictly to our no-strike pledge to the ..

nation."

The 'no-strike pledge was thus duly affirmed by resolution number .one of the

convention. However, because, as Ernie Dalskog noted, labour never discards a weapan

without another to take its place; resolution number two instituted a campaign in the

woodworking industry of "non-partisan political action" in order to honour the no-strike

pledge and "go forward to shorter hours, higher wages and better conditions" by defeating c

the "anti-labour reactionary tory coalition in the upcoming federal electior!." These two 0

resolutions established the basis for the third which successfully buried the union shop 3

,s

proposal for K ~ I Wh&as the 20 September 1944 negotiations conference, as well as the

third'quarterly District Council meeting 'adoptecj the union shop as the union's main.

dqrnand, the convention endorsed this positionand resolved to instruct the ~istri ; Officers

ind Council to do ' '~"exythin~ they can to win support fo; the union shop frorn- '3

governments, the public+ other - trade unions and progressive bodies, and from rhose

employers willing to accept labour as a partner in industry." In order effectively to carry

out such a cainpaign, the delegates passed resolution four endorsing Canadian labour unity

amdngst0all CCL and TLC affiliates. Flowing out of labour unity and a concerted i

legislative lobby, o t h r resolutions to amend the federd labour code, amend PC 1

9384 by establishkg a 65 cent minimum wage,.remove wage inequalities resulting frdm the . ,

\ freeziog of wages, establish equal pay for equal work and proper shift differentials, and lift

restrictions on paid vacations. Finally, resolution seven called for the District Council, in

conjunction with other unions, to initiate a campaign to win support of the general public, 99-

the cabinet and the legislature to amend the masters and servants act with respect ro the

automatic check-off of dues.126

I t is of course questionable how much faith the District leaders actualli put in a '

political action programme as a bstitute weapon to win what in other periods would be "t I .

collective bargaining demands. Almost immediately after the convention District One

withdrew from the CCL Political ~c t i&-commi t t ee over the reversal of its non-paitisan

approach. (Under Congress policy political action committees were riot to make >

independent recommendations on local candidates, a ruling the Disgict leaders viewed as 'i

aimed at precluding the support of LPP or independent labour candidates against the

CCF.)'Z7 Nevertheless, in principle, the convention programme gave recognition to the

indusmal relations reality of the day, while at the same time allowing the union to maintain , .

an aura of militancy. Jn fact, industrial relations been made ; political issue and it

would fake a political fight to break the stranglehold of the state on collective bargaining.

That fight would occur after the wk. Nineteen forty-five was a time to strengthen, h less . .

confrontational ways, the position the union had alr&dy attain@.

4 s ne tiations proceeded through the winter and spring, the District Executive and Y I

8 Q

Council continued to pay lip service to political action. at the sa& time moving to work out

an amicable settlement quickly and quietly. Even conciliahon, which had been discussed at ,

the convention, was now t o _ b avoided. 'Having yet .thoroughly'to organize the industry, -

and without the ability to strike: the executive considered it a risky proposition. Not only .

might their contracts be considered temnated with the breakingdoff of negoiiations; but

also the union leaders felt that by going to conciliatioff aaconsiderable t iqe woul'd elapse -i

before any satisfactory agreement was reached-time that might be used by certain - .

employers, and union members opposed~o the bistrict leadership, to undermine the gains . +

, already worked out through negotiation.lB . . . , , -

I

he union's bottom line was modified to'suit the situation and now consisted 6f / - .

G . -

renewal of all exemptions from the overtime clause, maintenance of membership, RWLB - =

ceiling rates forall job categories, two weeks vacation after five yeaqs (currently one * * - " *

week), and the further negotiation by a joint industry committee on a medical scheme.!?

By March, Pritchett reported to the Distria Council meeting the attainment of nine of 15 ,

demands originally drafted by the Nanaimo conference. Some of the other main iss

would have to await changed legislation, he reminded delegates.130 At the same time -d -

Marcuse submitted the joint Stuart Research-PCLB report on a Medical-Health-Life Plan u,

be incorporated as a supplement in local agreements. The report, which grew out of f

meetings between Pearce and Billings of Stuart Research and Pri tchett, Dalskog and - Marcuse for the union, was a recommendafion only and presumed a fuller series of

meetings to work out technical details, manner of implementation and a decision on the 4 . .

- * .

carrier of the plan.131

Without union security local delegates-still overwhelmingly approved the settlement.

Even white bloc delegates voiced qualified suppok at th;is point. ~ l s b u r ~ of 1-357 and

Lloyd Whden of 1-217 both agreed that negotiating the union's main demands was - d

difficult in this situation. But Alsbury felt the union should hold out for another 30 days

and put on, a campaign to get men into the union as he feared a falling-bff of membership

over the union's lack of success. The Trotskyist CCFer Whalen feared the no-

strike/political action strategy had weakened the union, but nevertheless spoke against the *

"wtiispexjng campaign" and non-payment of dues in defiance of the District leadership.

~ i i f Killeen of local 1-80, a vocal supporter of the exeoutive, felt the agreement was worth . - /

signing, even if just for the proposed medical scheme. Jack Lindsay d 1-357 noted that A

fer a p&ially organized group the IWA had made huge gains.132 4

Thrpugh April,,Morgan worked on the RWLB schedule of ceiling rates for adoption

the union, in order to bring all workers up to the board's established

the wo&lworking industry.lg3 Pritchett participated in a series of meetings

Humphref Mitchell, and provincial labour minister, George Pearson, at

the end of which both ministers endorsed the contract,~lncluding the somewhat contentious

issue of two weeks vacation with pay for five-year employees. Pearson undertook to

promote its endorsation by the RWLB whose ruling was requested by a joint letter from

Stuart and Pritchett representing 123 companies and 25,000 employees 'covered by the "

master agreement. .At the same time negotiations were proceeding in several operations for . ,

.-

adjustment of ranges up to the newly-established ceiling rates. All agreements would be

effective as of 15 March 1945, and would include any increases in wages then under

negotiation. In view of the successful and amicable settleme~k, Pritchett suggested to the b e -

executive acceptance of an invitation of the Employers' Committee, given through Stuart, 2

to hold a Midsummer Picnic jointly sponsored by the employers and the union, and further 1

suggested a Midsummer Dance to coincide with the picr&lM

Was there really reason to celebrate? In actuality, there was. Given the~very

skeletal nature of the first master agreement, it was appropriate that a second contract would

be aimed at filling in some of the gaps. In view of the limitations imposed by the economic

conditions of the industry as a whole, and state regulation of monetary items, the 1945

settlement was a considerable accomplishment and very much in line with the union's

strategy of consolidating its position after winning rekogni tion.

An analysis of the settlement reveals some respectable achievements, even in the 5

area of monetary gains. According to union estimates, wage adjustments up to ceiling

levels resulted in an increased wage bill to the industry for 1945 of $680,000. Considering

+ that the total wage bill for the logging and lumber sectors was somewhere in excess of $50

million for 1944, this figure would have represented an overall increase in wages of just a /

over one percent, in itself not-a tenibly impressive achievement.135 Nonetheless, on top of

that the union received a shift differential of 5 cents per hour on the second and third shifts,

and the implement-ation of a regular eight hour day148 hour week for certain maintenance

and mechanical categories hitherto limited to a nine-hour day/50-hour week. An industry-

wide health and welfare scheme was not part of the final package, but;ome of the larger

operators Qd introduce schemes of their own for which the union claimed some credit.136.

The most significant monetary gain embodied in the paid+vacations clause was

finally won only after a joint application to the NWLB for exemp-tion from its so-called

Dccision Bulletin 17 (DB 17) which imposed severe limitations on any vacation clauses *.

negotiated after 15 November #!XI. As a result of DB 17; under the first master

agreement, employees, after one year'; continuous service (300 days), were entitled to one e '

week's vacation with pay for and during the following 12 months service. In other words,

no vacation time could be accumulated or taken during the first year of employment. This

limitation particularly affected millworkers, and the more settled or married loggers prone

- to work steadily for one outfit. fn July 1945, with the war in Europe over, the NWLB, in ,

response to a joint applkation on behalf of 123 employers and the union, overturned a

rulini of the RWLB and granted one week's vacation for the first year's work, and two -/

.weeks after five years (or pay i n lieu of, where production would be lost because of the

two week absence of key men). With this latter condition the union was i n f u l l

agreement.137 The imposition of DB 17 on the 1944 agreement had caused considerable x

. disgruntlement amongst union members. In the mill sector, approximately 27 percent of

,employees in 1945 were in their fi&t year of employment and thus not eligible for any

va~at ion .13~ Morgan had made it clear to the Nanaimo conference that during 1944

"vacations with pay has been the most vexing of problems we were faced with."139 4

According to the industry's &ef to the NWLB "both Mr. Pritchett and Mr. Stuart" felt that /

failure to alter the 1944 agreement would be "very disturbing to the employee."140

Vacations was a big issue for the average worker and success on this item an.imgortant

gain for the IWA.

A second category of gains ma& in the 1945 settlement involved the reinforcement

and extension of the legitimacy originally won with the attainment of union recognition,

through the designation of a union role in the adminis&atibn of the agreement, often jointly, \ ,

with management. A joint Safety Committee with equal represehtation from each side was

to be maintained in every operation with 25 or more employees, to enforce the regulations

of the Workers Compensation Board. Union representatives wouri'd'be compensated for

time spent in safety meetings. The union camp or mill committee in each operation was

given the joint responsibility. along'with the' company, of establishing the basis of \

departments for seniority purposes, (Incidentally, the probation period for entitlement to a e

seniority ranking was reduced from 40 to 30 days). Any employee elected as official

representative on behalf of the union would be grante-of absence by the company

without loss of seniority.I4l

Both the 1944 and 1945 agreements, as required by the federal Wartime Labour I

Relations Regulations, contained provisions for the final settlement of disputes-in other

words a grievance and arbitration pmedure. As in many labour-management agreements

reached during this period (1944-48) such a mechanism for final settlement of disputes

served the union as a minimal trade-off for a management rights clause and fcr language

restricting strikes during the term of the contract. These contractual innovations were

intended to introduce a kind of "rule of law" into industrial relations in place'of Ale by

f0rce .1~~ The 4945 agreement introduced yet another dispute settlement mechanism, called - I

''l?ight*of Reference," which was intended to prevent grievancds from arising by arriving at ,

mutually agreeable interpretations of the agreement where there was conflict or ambiguity.

Either party had the right to refer a matter of interpretation to a Joint Industry Committee,

and have the reference accepted by the other party. In the context of the war, the union

very much regarded this committee as a kind of district-level joint production committee, - inasmuch as it was designed to resolve local disputes quickly, without any disruption at the

job site. Unlike the production committee proposal put forward by the Nanaimo

conference which called for committees in each operation, the Joint Industry Committee

consisted of three representatives selected by the District negotiating committee, and three .

selected by the employers. It was to meet monthly and recommend interpretations of the

agreement on matters arising from local dxputes. P

Taken together, all of these vari6us additions to the master agreement, along with

the joint representations to the W B , and the joint cbnsideration of an industry welfare

scheme, more firmly entrenched the IWA. as & industry bargaining agent for

woodworkers. But out of the 1945 agreement there emerged more explicitly than ever, a

"down side" to this steady march toward union security-the first signs a t h e

bureaucratization that commentators knowledgeable in the affairs of the IWA have pointed -

to as an important factor in the internal difficulties the union experienced in the immediate ' ,.

post-war period. 143

The Joint Industry Committee met for the first time in June 1945. ~uidel ines were

irnrndately established for proceedings. Observers, or those called in by either side, were

to be limited in number, as too many observers or witnesses, it was felt, tended to delay the

reaching of dkisions. The party or parties most drectly concerned with any dispute would

be allowed to sit in at the meeting, but voting would of course be restricted to an equal

number of committee members from each side. And Stuart proposed that the same men

should be kept on the committee as far as reasonably possible. Pritchett was most

enthusiastic to endow' the committee with binding authority. He suggested that "once the

Committee had made its decision, unless some reconsideration was asked, that the decision

should be considered the policy for future, and that both Company and Local Union

officials be notified." J.E. Jones from the industry side, spmewhat concerned about the

local autonomy of those he represented, suggested that "while decisions made by the

Committee might be made policy for future, it should not be tied too closely to individual

operationi." It was finally unanimously agreed that the committee would have no power

of enforcing a decision, its function to be to examine cases in dispute and make

recommendations for consideration. However, once District representatives on the

Committee had given their unanimous endorsement to a particular interpretation of the

agreement as recommended policy across the industry, it would have b e ~ n next to

impossible for local officials to proceed with a grievance running counter to the District's

posi tion.144

Union participation on the Joint Industry Committee was a delicate matter. If the i

officers were going to take part in a process at the District negotiating level which was 1

aimed at resolving locally-bas'ed disputes as a vehicle further to entrench the union in its '

contractual relationship with the employer at the expense of what Stanton refers to as the

"member-leader linkage," at the very least it should have taken care, in the process,

properly to defend local interests.145 A careful analysis of cases dealt with during the

summer of 1945 indxates that District leaders were rather more interested in having a part

to play in conmct administration than they were in fighting for the rights of the local.

employees involved.

T ~ O disputes arose immediately deahng with Sunday work. The Contract stipulated

that "those employees who, of necessity, work on Sunday shall take another day of the

week off."146 A dispute arose at CWL's Fraser Mills plant as to what portion of the crew I

this section covered. The Committee adopted the position that it should not attempt sudca

determination. Instead, it unanifnously agreed that "of necessity" be defined as work hat

not be done except on Sunday without serious inconvenience to the company nd \ i

u tion. Of course, it was left to the company to determine the definition of a seri a 8 inconvenience. No joint deliberations between management and the local mill

were considered a p p r ~ p z i a t e . ~ ~ ~

' At MacMillan's Canadian White Pine mill, another problem arose concerning

Sunday workers in the event of a statutory holiday falling on theirday off. The contract

failed to provide explicitly for this situation. More specifically, millwrights who, of

necessity worked Sunday with Monday as their day off, felt that in the event of a statutory

holiday falling on a Monday, they were denied the benefit accruing to ordinary employees

whq got the bonus of two days off in a row. In suc'h a case they felt they should receive t,

the following day off as we1l.a~ their regular day. The Joint Industry Committee, on which

the union was represknted by Pritchett, Dalskog and 1-217 president D.S. Watts

(representing the local involved) recognized the right of employees to the same amount of

time off, but did not ac&owledge in any way thespecific grievance of the millwrights.

~ m ~ b o ~ e e s were given no discretion as to how theiwere to be compensated. Instead it 0

was fecornmended as policy for the entire industry that the employer should sometime

with& the ensuing thirty days, grant the emploiee concerned a rest day to make up for the

holiday that fell on his day 0 f f . 1 ~ ~

During the NWLB vacations-with-pay hearing the industispokesman argued that

the five-year men in the mill section comprised 33 percent of employees and were usually

in key positions. To give a second week's vacation en rn- (as was the usual practice for

vacations) would necessitate closing the mills down for a second week during the summer.

This second closure would throw between 60 and 70 percent of the crew out of work

without pay, and would hun production. Both the union ._- and the companies agreed during

negotiations that, particularly when lumber production on the west coast was a vital . '

necessity from every point of view, both civilian >md. military, it was important that the

I -175-

1 ?

t contain a provision that an e week's pay could be given in lieu of the second

Nothing in the stipulated how such a decision was to be

made, leaving it then, by virtue of the qanagement rights clause, to the companies to

determine. In August 1945, local 1-357 asked for an interpretation as to whether it was a

negotiable point between the company and the local whether a five-year employee received

the time off or extra pay instead. The main mill operation in the local, Fraser Mills, had an

unusually high proportion of five year men-563'out of 1227. In a vote of employees on

the issue, a majority might easily have voted for the 'second week off, in spite of possible a

. loss to l e s ~ senior workers. At the very least, in light of the 1945 District demand for joint

plant production committees in each operation, it was reasonable for the local to support

some genuine in-plant consultation on the question. Instead, the Committee unanimously

recommended that the company "acquaint Union representatives with the reasons for

making the decision in respect to vacations for five year employees prior to posting notices

dealing with the same thus giving the union an opportunity to make suggestions should the

Union &quest a meeting for this purpose."150

A final case to demonsuate the point that union involvement on the Joint Industry

Committee tended to produce a bureaucratic disposition towards local issues involved a

matter o f interpretation on the night shift differential raised by both locals 1-80 and 1-357.

Some employers had taken the position that the differential did not apply unless the night

shift was operating- production; yet in mills and camps with no night shift operation

there were steady c r e t s of engineers, maintenance men and mechanics employed on the -

second and third shifts. The locals took the position, which was quite legitimate given the

wording of Article 111 b,151 that these men were entitled to the differential. Rather than

support this interpretation, the Distri'ct representatives gave thelre unanimous support to a \

Committee decision tG1.refer the matter to the RWLB for a ruling. Now it was quite

f possible that p e n dsagreement on the issue the board would have been called in to rule

ultimately. Nevenheless, though expedient, it was not terribly conducive to good relations

with the local members nor to the maintenance of a militant on-the-job posture to refer the

matter from what was rapidly becoming one level of bureaucracy to another, run by the

state. A policy of consolidating organizational gains did not necessarily have to entail totd

collaboration on the Joint Lndustry Committee in dealing with fairly routine matters of local

industrial relations. No doubt this tendency toward centralization in contract administration

- ; \ was reinforced by conditions in the logging sector where it was often very difficult to keep

grievance committees i n the camps intact. During subsequent negotiations several cases .

-@ '4 would be cited where committees disbanded and "for long periods bargaining or grievance

procedure was impossible."152 There was probably less excuse for this trend in -the

sawmill sector. Rather than promote strong shop-floor grievance committees as the '

backbone of local organizations, District leaders persisted in a policy of centralizing control

from above, which may have been appropriate for an organizational phase, but which

ought to have been relaxed and power disbursed during a phase of c o h ~ o l i d a t i o n . ~ ~ ~

The strategy adopted by the District, of consolidating its local organizations around

a signed industry-wide collective agreement, resulted in a situation where the real class

struggle in the industry was displaced from the camps and mills and moved into the board I

rooms of the wartime industrial relations apparatus. In 1941, at the Lake Log arbitration,

the worlds of the rank-and-file and the industrial relations bureaucracy briefly crossed

paths. But even in that context, the workers7 substantive roli was as a noiiy and 2 r'

boisterous audience, rather than as key actors in the drama. By 1944-45, the l k u s of L r .

power in the union was clearly centred at the District level. This structure was a direct *

outcome of the decision to go the "Wagner Act route." That strategyG'proved very 5

successful in the short-term, but left the rickety structure of District One, without strong 4

roots in many of the local job sites and occupational categories, vulnerable to attack. It is

of course true that centralized District control also tended to keep power in the hands of the

LPP cadre in the District. But that cadre also had loyal members and followers at the head

of most, if not all of the locals. Given more time, a more truly representative, democratic

and decentralized system may have developed. The IWA, as an industry-wide

organization, was very much a hot-house growth, produced by wartime market conditions,

During 1944-45, no doubt, more might have been done to try to create viable 'local

structures, as well as to accumulate members, certifications and signed agreements. That it

was not had less to do with communist "democratic centralism" than &th a fairly common

CIO strategy-a successful one at that--of organisng and structuring the union around an

industry-wide coIlective agreement negotiated and largely administered by the District e

Executive.

- 178-

chapter Si&

1946: Ne- . .

Since the mid-1930s, with the rise of the CIO unions and their legitimation'through

the Wagner Act, British Columbia's organized woodworkers had struggled in conjunction

with North America's industrial proletariat to achieve the basic labour goals made possible

by the New Deal era. After 1937 in British Columbia, the decades-long fight against the

blacklist, open shop and swashbuckling, freewheeling capitalism of the "kumber barons"

had been channelled into new and increasingly bureaucratic structures: a continental

industrial woodworkers union and a state run indusmal relations apparatus. The halcyon

days of the second LWIU, when squadrons of loggers did direct battle in the7backwoods of

Vancouver Island with company stooges and scabs, gradually gave way to the slow,

painstaking process of building and consolidating the British Columbia District in the mork a \

sophisticated world of labour, government and industry bureaucrats. But were these older,

more "syndicalist" traditions "superceded and transformed," as Larry Peterson has argued

with respect to North American communism's relationship with industrial unions? In the

case of the IWA, thegrocess of absorption of these older practices was more dialectical

than in Peterson's general model for North America. These earlier forms of working class

activity remained alive and ticking within the breast of the District One rank-and-file, and 1

important aspects of its leadership. Ln British Columbia, the synthesis between the political

anp the economic had an outcome more akin to Peterson's European model, in which the

m h a g e of party and union structures and personnel reoriented the entire structure of the

pa~ty toward industrial action, so that "the economic structures of the Party threatened to

engulf, even to replace the political appar&s.. . .'Q

1 The synthesis. through which the trade union became the major vehicle for the

political expression of Party policy produced few significant contradictions with the world

of industrial relations, during a perid when political activity was-defined generally in terms

of an alliance with New Deal liberalism and the construction of a broad anti-fascist

coalition. This characteristic was particularly marked in British Columbia where there was - v _

a very specific congruence between District &e9s industrial relations and political agenda.

In sum, the "communization" of labour unionism, to use Peterson's contept, r e m h e d to a 7 -

large extent invisible so long as the political battle accommodated itself to. the basic ,

i . structures outlined by Rooseveltian liberalism, which, from the perspectiveof District One- ,

leaders, extended into Canada and British Columbia during the Mackenzie King em. -As,,

Joseph Starobin has written, "for the first time in 75 years, left wing unionists had been : i-

able to integrate their trade union activity with the political movement which had @ven'them

their original impetus."2 As long as the politics of industrial relations could be worked out

within the mainstream political structure, communist labour leaders could carry their

members without stumbling over basic contradmions between trade union and po!itical t '

goals. By 1947, this happy coincidence was no longer possible. The events of 1946

helped shove the politics of industrial relations into a confrontational mould

Q,

By 1945, the New Deal era had run its course. As the war ended, strident voices

within the more right-wing sections of the American industrial capitalist class $and

government departments began calling for an assault on labour at home, soon to be

matched by a more asse'rtive anti-communist approach in foreign p01icy.~ Both these

tendencies would quickly find their echo within government andbusiness circles in Canada

and British Columbia. The process of post-war reconversion and political realignment,

together with the emergence of a new phenomenon on the world stage, hegemonic A

American imperialism, quigkly drove-a h a d wedge into the industrial union movement and

between the political and industrial agendas af communist-led unions especially. The

d iknma that very starkly faced many communist union leaders, as the crucial 1946-48

p e r i d bore down on them, is eloquently stated by Starobin, ex-CPUSA member turned

. . academic, in American Communism in Clnsls:

- 180-

But if the Communist party were to demandpf its members things they could not do as unionists, then it could easily be accused 'of wanting to use the union for ultefior pwpses. The pro-Communist had either €0 try to win support 6n the merits of the argument and abide by the decision of the majority if such SUPPOIZ could not be won, or to provoke a bitter: fratricidal battle in which it was strong enough to make a fight but not strdng enough toGn. If it abided by the relationship of forces, itcould retain trade union positions ... But if itmade a fight to politicize its union positions, the left wing would be returning to a syndicalist conception the notion that the Party and the union were interchangeable and iniiistingkshable. With such a concept, the left' wing: of the mid-forties had hardly a better chance of

'

maintaining itself than its predecessor had. To adapt itself to the separation between P a q and union meant to follow the logic of the iuccess of the unions which had bqcome autonomous and institutionalized forces within the society, whatever the private views of their -pioneering, thsading founders. Many a left wing unionist in fact accepted the compulsions of A

this institutionalization as a matter of day-to-day practice.4

w t h respect to thyase. under study here, Starobin's analysis may underestimate' *. a

the degree oiintegration r e i M between Party and union already by 1944, an integration

muted by a broad political co~s6&s*gotwithstanding the internecine skirmishes between $"

coqmunists and social democrats. ~hi<%road consensus w o u l ~ g i n to break down and 4

skirmishes turn to battles when thd and crusading foundeis of District One .

I jumped on the anti-imperialist band-Gagon set rolling by William Z. Foster and Henry. 9

Wallace j n the United States. To use/Starobin's phrase again, the logic of their own 5'42

success dictated a more cautious adherence to the compulsions of an-institutionalized trade

unionism, the apparent object of their struggle since 1937. But the syndicalist and ,

revolutionary "beast" that stdl lived at the very heart of the original vanguard and their loyal . I

< - followers, pushed District One up against and then ultimately through the very limits of 9~. '

1 .

i " "14

institutionalization. Eventually, even the continentalist approach to industrial ,unionism out - of which that i n s t i r u t i ~ ~ a t i o n had emerged was called into question. This path was a

very dangerous one to tread at a time when most woodworkers who had waged the war . . I

against fascism at home on the production front, and those returning veterans wi!o swelled . I

the ranks of the &st-war workforce, would havaonly a limited tolerance for talk of class

' war k d international crusa&s against fascism, imperialism and anti-communism ' . . v

.With the end of the &w;arin Ekope, American policy makers moved quickly to - * w , +

release themselves from the entanglements of the Sbviet a b n c e . he developmerit of thc -+

* * . ".

atomic bomb, the control of which Truman would not agree to* share with die Soviet * . .

6

Union, ensured not only v ic to6in the P&~C without Russitpi)id, but a l ~ o - ~ a v k the b '

President a 'pow ornatic weapod for use in stabilizing the peace in America's -

- -

i n t e re s t~ .~ As th proceeded to consolidate their position in-Eastern Europe,'the .a

United States, under Truman's direction, moved quickly onto its cold war footing. As -

expressed in Winston Churchill's ~u l ton , Missouri speech of March 1946, this position

consisted of an ~ n ~ l o - ~ m e r i c a n anti-Soviet alliance outside of the UN and under the

security of the bomb.6 While Canada still waffled, post-w'ar economic pressures and the

- pattern of economic and military cooperation w>tk the United States during the war were

quickly moving ii towards full integration witha~merican international aims. King, never

6 high on the UN as an instrument of peace, and preferring a policy of demobilization and

disengagem~nt, received a rude awakening when the Gouzenko revelations of Sedternber 24

1945 fofced*his hand.' irr February 1946, the Canadian government announced an . B P

agreement by the ~&anent '~oint Board of Defence, to extend the wartime defence alliance

with the United States into thepost-war period8 % - In the midst of &is realignment of international political forces, the soviet Union * - -

provided no firm hrection to the world communist movement until September 1947,

largely because of the participation of the European parties in coalition governments. Then, J

with the formation of the Cominform, Stalin announc'ed the period of the two camps.9 A

Lung before that, though, Duclos had delivered his message to the American~cornrnunists

resulting in the reconstitution of &e CPUSA under the leadership of William Z. Foster who . had worked as qn industrial organizer within the wade union movement since the early

. - -

1920s.1•‹ Foster undertook with zeal the task of cleansing the party of its Browderist . C -

heresy. No more talk of alliances wirh"progressive branches of the Capitalist class. World 0

politics was fast being polarized between "the reactionary- monopolists" and the

9

revolutionary forces Ied by the Soviet Union, Foster told a rally in September 1945. The - -

" job of American communists, he wrote in February 1946, was to lead a broad coalition of

democratic forces within the country, "to pull,the teeth gf American reaction" in order to

stop the drive for world dornin rneri&n imperialisin. This great coalition, led by

the trade unions, would ultimately culminate in the creation of a third party movement. d

Starobin notes that the seeds of a misguided sectarian departure from the well-trodden path r

of the p itical mainstream, which proved so successful for the commu&sts over a period . '?F dl -- > Y

of .ten years, were already germinating at this early date." a

In the judgement of ex-Party member Norman Penner, the LPP, because of its 1

I

physical~and ideological proximity to the CPUSA, began its departure from the national f -

unity tactic of Browderism before moststher communist parties.12 During the dramatic

UA W strike L . at. Ford's Windsor plant in November 1945, Tim Buck delivered a remarkable

speech in Toronto, issued scan after as a pamphlet entitled "'Atomic Diplomacy'-a threat

to world Peace." In this pamphlet the LPP leader excoriated the Anglo-American plot to w

restore reaction through intervention against the. democratic masses in Europe, South

America, Indonesia and China. The aim was to establish American fmancesapitalism in a

position of dominance in the post-war wgrld, with Britain as its junior 'partner. The I

government of Mackenzie Gng, accordmg to Buck, had aligned itself on the side of *- 1 3 '

- reaction in international affairs, and this position was supported in its domestic affairs by

. its actions on behalf of Henry Ford at Windsor. For Buck, as for Foster, the trade union

struggle at homk "for jobs and security with a democratic labour code," was part of a larger

people's struggle all over Europe and Xsia for Freedbm from reaction. "In defeating the

Fords of Canada," Buck intoned, "we shall help prevent the rise of new Hitlers anywhere >

in the world."F3

This them, drawing together the trade union struggle for very narrowly prescribed '

, . collective bargaining gains, with a much broader m:ional and-internationd people's '

mvcrnent of liberation From the yoke of Americar, irnperiahsrn, was given heavy emphasis . . ,_ _-

- . - . , *

d

L r

in the LPP's draft policy resolution p b l i h e d for pk-convention discussion in April 1946. -

Emphasizedas we11 was the attempt to turn Canada into a "cockpit of Wwld War 111," a

'development which would end by subjugating the country's democratic institutions, -

including the wade union movement, to the "triumph of North A'merican fascism." The

subordination of both Canada's economy and national sovereignty to AngleAmerican

imperialism called for a broad people's movement of workers, farmers. small a

businessmen, veterans, professionals and housewives led by the Canadian working class. 8

Jn this people's movement, the trade unions, which the LPP clearly regarded as its main

organizational instrument, having been sh-engthened by the war, were taking a leading part . ; . / a

"by aavancing their programmes of legislative reforms, wage increases, the shorter

workmg week and the curbing of monopoly prices." Beyond that, Canadian l a b u r was C

fighting for these objectives "in fraternal solidarity with labour in 41 lands, united in the -

C)

great World Federation of Trade Unions." The Canadian workers were to lead the struggle .

since they were the best organized of the anti-monopolist forces and because their condition

as wage earners brought them into "the sharpest opposition to the policies of the - J

monopolists-particularly now, when the whole struggle to Getermine the directidn of t

Canada's post-war policies is expressed in the wages struggle."14

In the absence of any strict guidance from Moscow as to the new political line, the

Canadian and American parties appeared to be advancing in lock-step. In retrospect the

1946 wage Struggle across North America did little to halt any drive for world supremacy

of American monopoly ~apitalism. But in the heady days of early 1946 in Canada, the left, * wing of the industrial labour movement was definitely feeling in an aggressive position of

i strength. The new direction being charted by Tim Buck to a large extent grew out of the

rmlitancy of the communist--led unions, fuelled, i t must be said, by the pent-up demands o f 1

their rank-arid-fde, and in turn struck a responsive chord amongst them. - *

D .

a The last part of 1945 saw District One geaPing up for its fir$ set of post-war . '

negotiations. A comprehensiJe survey of wages A d conditions in the various region; of

the interior was undertagen in an effort to incorporate the negotiating programme there into 1 4

a broad District effort led by the stronger coast locks. A festering battle for certiticatioi at

Sitka spr;ce ~ i m b e r in Vancouver, going on since mid-1944, against attempts by the

company to install an affiiiate of the so-cdled Amalgamated Union of Canada, came to a

head in October when the provincial government refused to prdsecute the company for

giving support to a company union.15 As similar efforts were being undertaken to

reorganize a company union at Consolidated Mining and Smelting in Trail, a plan was

hatched to make ihe Sitka case the "spearhead" of organized* labour'? attack against

company unions in Canada. The plan called for a joint presentation of the case by Pat .3

6

Conroy of the CCL, Harvey Murphy of Mme Mill and Pritchett.16 1

Negotiations for a first agreement at Keystone shinegre and Lumber in New *

Weminster went to conciliation when the company refused to sign without deletion of the.

entire hours of work artidti from the master agreewnt. When the conciliation board _

acceded to the company position in June, the crew rejected the award. The dispute dragged ' * >

on toward the end of the year, when the company lowered the pay scale of nine employees a

- in contravention of an April directive of the NUZB.17 With industry-wide negotiations I

approaching, the District Council decided Keystone was, a crucial test of its resqlqtofight

for the'1946 demands. A s e e \yas called on 28 ~ovi rnbei , supgofled by District

funds. I r ended on 22 January 1946 with the signing bf the 1945 coast rna&er * t r , -

1- A'

.- agreement. l8 * -

At the' January District Convention in Vancouver, wh& the programme for 194-6 B

collective bargaining was approved, the resolution calling for the establishm6nt of a . .

Fighting Fund based on voluntary contributions of one day's pay argued its urgency I-__L-. - ------ - -t4

lnasrnuck as both the Ford snike in Windsor. and the Keystone strike in ~ a n c k v e r

showed that reactionary interests supported by the federal government were planning to

drive wages down in the first major post-war round df negotiations.19 Though minor

hstances in themselves, both the Sitka and Keystone episodes reveal that-Dishict One was

coming to regard itself as being at the very eye of the storm, if not spearheading the way in B

the looming post-war confrohtation between the Canadian tabour movement and rnonopoiy

capital, over the issues of uriion security and the removal of federkl wartime controls.

Indeed, the peaceful wartime atmosphere of industrial cooperation was already *

being purposefully poisoned by the business press in British Columbia, most notably by

the influential periodical, Western Business and I n d u e I x a continuing diatribe :\.

u p s t 1945, labour's major post-war demands, the union shop, check-off, .,

the 40-hour week and increased wages were all linked dirtply to communism's totalitarian

mentality, domination by a Moscow leadership intent on undermining'capitalism's

POSE-war economic prospects. They would create conditions for the election of TI leftist "

government to be ~upported by fun& from the union check-,off. In particular, employers,

y&e urged not to be afraid to undergo a strike to halt the march to union security.m L> 4 a

%a .. Thallkind of anti-communist critique, taken together with the more, specific '

' a- 9%

confrontations in the lum-&r industry-the NWLB directive rolling back the wage bonus 9.

. .and b a w l all~wance for Queen Charlotte lslands loggers, b d the runaround being givenb P

R

d ,. unimmegotiators in the interior l m l s by CMA representative Ruddock--contributed to a

u E l

percepti~n of bpilding reaction and-provided a fertile local context for the incorporarion of. . - , - the new Buck-Foster line into the IWA's trade qnion agenda (see chapter five above). An

imponant aspect QF that line, as it wa3 interpreted by the IWA, wa5 a strategy of using the 9. - . .

trade unions as collective bargaining agents to push for aims that previously had been i

t- i - - --, , viewed as part of the political action agenda of lab&. Indeed, if in the 1944-45 period

many collective bargaining items had been shoved'into the'a&na of political .- action in the

interests of industrial peace and consolidatio?, in the immediate psi-war era, the broad

p r o b m m e of political and social refom which had formed the basis of the wartime

political action agenda, was now k ing broughrto the negotiating table. Recent elect~ral * q

setbacks for the-left in British &umbia and at the fkderal level no doubt corrtributed to this . development. P

= . .

The Wages and Contract Committee report approved by' the Ninth Annual

Convention of District Council Orie was breathtaking in its scope and audacity. The temper t, % e =

of the meeting was indicated by the political nature of.the many resolutions,that preceded .- \

bargaining issues. Indeed, the first 12 ' li

O R or international question$ such as

,'

-. imperialist armed interven~ion" in China and Indonesia, fascism in Spain, international 4

s

control of atomic energy and so on. In their report to the convention the officers noted that

1946 would ?equire "the*raising of the understanding of our membership, owing to the a

il 1

. . , necessity of the entire trade union movement c-ng on a consistent political struggle for

jobs, labour and social security legislation, for International cooperation of the United

Nations, tdavoid a third world war." -The federal go&mment w'as blasted for shirking its' - promises with respect to recoaCersionand posr-war rehabilitation by throwing the entire

J -4-

j&j&t "into the 1aps.of private ;nterprise." The programme of the ~apitalists~had recently 5 - - been made amply clear remove price controls and smash wage standards on the pretext,of

3 .* i . " v

international competitiveness. "Big Business" had spoken very frankly. The officers

urged, ''Lews speak with equal franknesS." The report from the wages and contract r$

committee did just that. a

The proghnme k ing put before the convention, the committee asserted, wuld only

be irnplemer&d as part of a joint struggle with the unions in the basic industries of British

Columbia and throughoui Canada. The objective would be for the entire tra& union

movement to adopt and join in a concerted effort to obtain these demands for @I vrorking ' - people. ~uxtherkore, the committee wanted the delegates to beaware that the attack from.

a the reactionary m@opolists against which this was intended to defend

Canadmn workers, was but part of& international capitalist assault against c o k n people

and the labour movement: "The intervention in China and Indonesia is reactionary

monopolkt and cannot be separated from the position that the reactionary monopolists are

taking in our own country against the working people.. .." That position was exemplified

I r

in particulatbx events at Windsor, the CMA's approach to bargaining in the interior, and -

the genkil effort to use the reconstruction process to destroy the trade union movement and

lower, general standards. Against that initiative, the IWA was urged to look forward to * ,

s e c h g the peace by fighting for the CCL programme of full employment and other basic ,

0

living conditions. Only *by increasing the purchasing power .of workers was full

.employment a possibility. More to the point, the war had been fought for the principles

t enunciated in the Atlantic Charter freedom of speech and worship, freedom from want and

i

j fear. To obtain these the convention was asked to approve three basic demands: a 40-hour .,.

week, a 25-cent per hour increase, union shop and check-off; and to seek the support of '

. .

farmers, small businessmen and people in communities generally whose economic welfare

would be affected by the siruggle. - . -

1 /

+order to implement the programme, the c6mmittee recommended that the IWK ppp-

.- . .

institute a na&n-wide ~arnpaip,~similar to that bf the CIO in the United States, "to get the. -7

@ other trade unions t o h dorig with'our union for the same demands and enlist their support -

\

in our struggle." A strikkyote, the committee recommended; should be held immediately '.----L-- 'i

to be used whenever necessary, a strike fund of a day's pay per member set up, and the

entire programme submittedto local meetings for a p p r o ~ a l . ~ ~ p

In rising to support the report of the committee, President ~ritchett'declared, as if in

defence of this rather ambitious, if not audacious proposal: "It is quite energetic and not the

least fantastic. The time has come wheri h should call a spade a spade, and leave this ,

Convention with no confusion whatsoever." hitckett drew very heavily on the lessons of

themford smke, "one of the struggles in the history of the labour movement," to

'-which District One had subscribed $26,000 of the $47,000 raised through the British

Columbia Federation of Labour. Though at the time.of the convention, arbitrat& Ivan -

Rand had not yet handed down his award, Pritchett passed his Judgement on the C C L ' ~

role in the affair. "Due to hesitancy in (the) leadership of Canadian labwr to &lly the

movement on the pretext of a lack of authority," h predicted, "the results of theeFord strike

" r ' will not come up to exp&tations." His reference, at least irf part, Gas to the action of Pat - '

Conrocan_d the CCL National Ford S$e Committee in quickly thwarting the attempt of

the local joint policy committee to rally CCL unions behind a one-day nation-wide. Cr.

sympathy strike on 12 November 1945. The IWA was prepared to carryqon the fight

started by the Ford workers.. But first, it was necessary to get the strike vote and raise ah

3 emergency strike fund. "We can then go to the International officers of'the C.1.0. and the

-- -

C.C.L. leaders and say, 'The woodworkers are prepared to lead the struggle for the

adoption of the aims of the Atlantic Charter?." More apecifi&ally, in the event that, 3s it had La==--

been rumoured, A.R. Mosher was about to call a special conference on wages and ..

, contracts, the IWA would then take the programme adopted by the convention and present u

it to all CCL affiliates seeking their full endorsernent.22 a

It is evident from these January proceedings that District One did not viey its - - - -

.+ imminent confrontation with the lumber operators as any ordinary job action. Rather,'this , .

conflict was to be the spearhead of a concerted effort by Canadian labour to seeure its - I . wartime gains and extend them into the perid of post-war reconstruction of Canadian:

pciety. On a larger scale it was to- be part of the international struggle agahst'psing - - . .

/~rnerican imperialism abd reactionary monopoly capitalism. Never before in the short but

- tumultuous history of District One had its trade union agenda been so explicitly linked to

the broader class struggle. in Canada and throughout the Gorld. It 'is

noteworthy, in view ~f the conventional. wisdom concerning communist-led labour unions, -

that this development occurred in the absence of any specific dkqtions from Stalin.

District One was not being pulled by strings from Moscow. The pull if any came more I from the &USA, as well as from indkpendent reading of events unfoMing across ~ o r t h .

" -

America, Europe and Asia which indicated the need for a dramatic shift. The push caqe

* .

9 % from within the union ranks where .woodwpkers expected the union to mske demands

t '

m n s u r a t e with their wart& conaibutionatd their faltering a o q n i c position, 'ahd to

utilize whatever strategy was necessary to win them. Moreover, District- One was pushed ".

along this new path by a trade union logic peculiar to the new political conditions. I f

indee$ the political framework of New Deal industrial relations was breaking down at

war's end, it was illogical to carry on as if nothing had changed. In that cont&it made

some sense that political questions would become an integral part of the trade union

agenda. One of those questions, "what was the new industrial relations structure to be?" L

preoccupied both the IWA and the coast lumber operators during the 1946 contract dispute.

It is as an event that did much to define the post-war nature of class relations in British

Columbia that the 1946 saike hasits broadest historical signficance.

111

In mid-January, District One, as required by contract, notified the coast employers'

bag-&nag agent, Stuart Research - Service, - of its intention to open negotiations to amend - - - - - - - - - - -

- - -- -- - -

the cpllective agreement, the term uf which ran to 15 March.= At that time, negotiations

+had been proceeding hakingly in the interior. It grew increasingly likely that they would

eventually run parallel with industry negotiations on the coast in an effort to win an

industry-wide settlement throughout the provinde.2 "

Following Pritchett's scenario, during the month of January the locals ratified the

wage and contract proposals. Strike ballots were readied and the so-called District ~ i ~ h u n ~

Fund was established on the basis of voluntary contributions of one day's pay per

As District One readied itself for action, a massive strike wave in the united

States, lucked off by the UAW strike against General Motors in November 1945, reached

its peak. By the latter part of January, GM, workers "were joined by hundreds of

thousands of steel, electrical equipment and meatpacking workers" in, what Nelson

~ichtenstiin calls "the largest strike wave in American history." AIthough the CIO brass, 8,

still hungover from its long experiebce with New Deal tripartism, shied away from a-direct '

political confrontation with Truman, these strikes, as ~ichtenstgin describes, were. . ultirnatkly political. Their aim was win significant wage increases while at the same time ? .

a putting enough pressure on Truman's administration to preserve the wartime price a

apparatus, the ~ n l y way to ensure meaningful economic gains: Twenty-five cents an hour . - * .

became the accepted demand amongst many of the large American unions: By the end of

February, a pattern increase of 18; cents per hour had been set by steel, and confom;ed to . . - in settlements in the auto, oil rubber, electrical m d meatpackidg ~ e t t l e m e n t s . ~ According ' .

to Lichtenstein, the strike settlement of 1946 in the United s i t e s was a "pyrrhic"-vi&tory 6

?- ,

merely giving industry 'a weapon to use against price controls, finally removqd in. C - f

November. Nevertheless, in the heady days of the winter and spring of 1945-46, the . . 9

American CIO strikes provided a model and an inspiration for CIO unions in Canada, and . .

dovetailed nicely with the post-war communist perspective on politicizing the trade union ,

agenda.27 -s

'i - -

- - At the end of January a conference of all the major Canadian CIO unions was held

in Toronto, where it was decided that a' national campaign in line with the IWA programme

, -- would be launched immediately, and efforts made to include all CCL unions. Mine Mill =--

9 stalwart Harvey Murphy, a leading figure in the provincial LPP, reported to the 4 February

IWA District Executive meeting on the Toronto conference. H; n o t i that while price . . ceilings were being raised, wage control order P.C. 9384 still held the lid on workers'

paycheques. Sounding an old syndicalist note, Murphy urged that the miners, railway and

woodworkers must lead the struggle against the wage-price policies of the federal . . '.-. ,

" government, and put the full Support of his union behind the I W A ' d e ~ ~ l i i ~ l d s , ~

In Hamilton, a cauldron of labour unrest during 1946, the Steilworkers, Electric'al

Workers and Rubber Workers vnions fomied a local wage policy cornminee which set 25

cents as the basic demapd. But, as an indication of the limits to coordinated action posed

by splits in the labour movement, the USW balked at the 25 cents, and in February refosed

-191- r- - "

to cooperate with the local committee at all, due mainly to the at~tude ot~harle's ~i1lard.L . T

and other national Steelworker figures toward the communist UE29 * ' - . .

* On 10 ~ebruky , Nigel ~ o i ~ a n , British Columbia LPP lead* and ex-seerrtary of , . ? . L.

District One, addressing' a membership meetingof the party welcomed the corning wage i - 6 -

conference of the CCL uriions and pointed out that only a powerf@coordingted natiopd 8

movement could assure victory. He presented themain resolutions adopted by a provincial . .

LPP trade union conference 'which called for the by-passing of PC 9384, and for labour to

develop the wage struggle to such a level that the main sections of the labour movemcs

CCL, AFL and independent unions, would enter the fight in a united and.energetic way.30

The Executive Council of the ECL met during the second w e e k . o f ~ & ~ & y taf

con:ider the establishment of a national wage policy. But the CCL was not'about to

endo& a wave of political strikes against the government, particularly cine being pushed- '

_ .

by the likes of Pritchen, Murphy and Morgan: That poskon was reenforced at the same .

meeting when Millard's charges against LPP member^.^. Jackson, vice-president of UE, .r

V" were tabled for investigation by a sub-codttee. ~ackson, done among membets of the

4 CCL's National Ford s&e Committee had enthusiastically supportedthe proposed nation- . ,

wide one-day strike, predicting at a- Market Hall meeting "a spontaneous show of support . across the country.''31

, i

The CCL executive nevertheless pledged to support "to the utmost of its ability" the -

efforts of constituent unions to obtkn a general wage increase to ensure,every worker a i

* d

higherstandard otliving, and a reduction in hours to 40 or less with no reduc&n in pay. , . The wage policy was expressed in general terms, accordmg to the CanaBlan so as

not to interfere with the rights of affdiated unions to establish their own poli4. ~hek~

wage policy concluded by advwating an increase in production of consumer g d s , and te

the maintenance of price controls.32 This policy was not, of course, a programme for . ,

nation-wide coordinated job action, though locals were urged to discuss it and "st% to what *

extent they can embody it in their own a inmabate wage programme." Rather i t was struck # .

- li

as a politiciik actien programme which formed the basis of the' Congress' annual

.memordndurn to and lobby of the federal*govdent in April.33 The CCL was careful to

-&stance,itself firom any planned nation-wide industrial acti0n.Y It did, however, set up, at

the behest of the more militant CIO unions, the National Wage Coordinating Committee "

-. . I.

which inet in April to dr;jt a uniform policy for all CCL aff~ates, md ti, ear reports from b individual unions. ~ u l l reports were given by the m ~ , Mine Mill, USW, Ufi and UAW.

~ritchet~informed his District Council on 14 April that "from this discussion it was evident

the situation was favourable for a concerted national campaign in Canada around the fGst

week May.'y." -Word from Intemadonal headquarters in Portland indicated a strong

possibility ofGa strike amongst American west coast woodworkers around that time as well.

Of course, he could not say that coordinated action would occmqn a certain day, as unions 4 . -. necessarily had different demands and policies to apply to pamcular > situations, but it was

possible to say that "the situation in Chada is shaping up very nicely. We alk realize that - it is not going to be the IWA-alone who will be able to smash through P.C. 9384, but it -

* will take such mass concerted actiori to be successful." The CIO niovement in the U n i t e -o ,

. - States, Pritchett explained to the council, &so lilinked its wage campaign to a fight for pqce .i

m

control. On that question, he was certain the'union could gain broad public support: "We

I will have to involve ai many as we can in this fight.along with us.'q5 In an effort to .- * n .

coordinate the work of the major British Columbia unions, District One.also initiated;in

March, an informal conference of delegates from the seaman, fishermen, metal miners,

street railway and lqngshore unions, agd was working to establish a permanent . - .

coordinating c0rnmittee.3~ .

While the broader picwe was apparently falling into place, District One itself was

humming with activity. he' strike vote authorizing the District Counh-il to call out the

membership in the likely event that the WA's demands were not met was'coming in

heavily in favour during early February. The 1946 programme reportedly had served to

strengthen the union's position in plants at Fanny Bay and Port Alberni where organizqion

a

. - -193-

?

4 - had fallen off during the latter pan of the war.37 ~eor~e%tchell of the New WeQtninster

, \

- local, n-eat friend of the Distri~t executive, reported membership growing by le&k and *< \

bounds. Locals 1-80 ahd 1-217 rkported enthusiastically that they had run short ofktrike * i i :

ballots.38 9

While negotiations for a 1946 contract had not yet begun on the coast, a tentative

settlement was reached in Prince George based on the 1945 coast agreement. It was 4

scuttled'before the RWLB had a chance to consider it, when the union demanded the right I

. ' to open the agreement for renegotiation on 30-days notice. With the southern interior a i -

operators still resisting an industry-wide settlement, and with the coast situation coming to -

. a head, the District wanted a free hand to bring the whole interior region into the fray.

Moreover, federal price controls had been relaxed during the course of the RWLB t

,- deliberations. Accepting a wage scale for Prince George under PC 9384, while prices on \,

f some 300 items were being hoisted, ran counter to the overall District wage poJicy for

I

. The strategy for the interior was neatly summed up by International Board member

Dalskog who, because of a shortfall of funds coming from the Lnternational, was put On the

Dismct payroll and paid out of the Fighting Fund, account, to cany out the work required to

unite the interior with the coast under the 1946 programme. Dalskog told a negotiation .

seategy meeting that since the interior lumbermen had been stalling on n.egotiations, and

with the 194.6 contract coming up on the coast, it was the union's turn to db a little stalling .

and bring the interiomp alpngside the stronger locals. He continued: Xt

It is no use attempting to get the satisfactory wage increases-through the r

Regional War Labour Board. It would be necessary. to by-pass P C . 9384 - and the only way this could be done is by uniting the whole of the industry $ ,

into one similar demand. Likewise, Conciliation Boards will bring about no satisfactory solution, and we should move to do away with them and settle the whole pqoblem with one rnastqr stroke. . * n . .d

New demands were to be drafted more in line with the coast demands, and the interio; . a r '

locals weredo prepare to take parallel action to enforce them. Some voices were raised in

, * r . concern about the readiness of the interior loc.als to bring their members in behind

the stiike. Pritchett assured that it would be the abjective to try to avoid a s e e in the e & T ". .

interior, but warned that the locals must be piepped to strike if necessary. The fidl strategy

was to be hashed out at an interior policyconference on 12 Mareh.4 Tb

The wage situation in the interior was chaotic. On account of the concentration of ,

production into several large operatiqns in the north, a'situation resembling that on the

w

* * - cdait, the RWLB had recognized many more bccupational classif~ations there than in the .. >

' south, resulting in a higher 6verall wage ceilirig: But there were wide differentials amongst B - 4 E . .

the various southern areas as well. The RWLB allowed a range of rates in many job l '

blassifications, with the precise wage left to the employer's discretion. While it had been 2

\ t i ' * the ~ o k d ' s intention that specific rGes b@ determined on some rational basis relating to the -

* u

-

nature Lf th'k job, skill, or length of@service, the Pacific Coast Labour Bureau found, in its -& . " . *

1945 survey, that- the de&ininihg k t ~ r was ig rnany,'c+es expxhency. A labour shortage - P ,,

in theEast Kootenays had resulted in the illegal practice of payingmuch higher thah RWLB d - . " . .

rates. The recognition of addihonaljob clas~ificah011~ there resulted icit&-h%hdk average *

: t * c e ' _ sawmilling rates in the south. The- high concentration of Japanese workers i n the No&

- Dkanagan employed at a flat rate of.57 cents helped produce a low average wage in that

A-

&ea. The RWLB common labour minimum wage in*the interior was 12 cents below the 67 *

cent floor set for the coast. But the variation across interior sawmills was actually much ,

greater thanthe RWLB's differ ntial with the coast. In Prince George, only 40 percent of

. t . - mill workers earned below 67 c nts per hour, comp&ed to 47 percent in East Kootenay, 57 . .

i ' percent in Karnloops and 63 - ercent in Nelson. In addition to the ellmination of range

, fates, the ~ e ~ t e h b e r 1945 mloops conference had set the objective bf raising the . -

. common labour rate across the interior to 67 cents. The November 1945 District brief for . ,

presentation to the RWLB ai& at establishg a uniform minimum and stabilizing wages . .

across a muldtude of different occupational categories in approximate parity withthe coast, ,

-

as a basis for mdusny-wide dl-ective bargaining.41 .

The interior. nego6ation agenda juh on wag&, leaving aside t'he r e e n d e r of the

- colleclive i t p e n t , was rmly onerous and complex. The organizational problems in the .2 , -._

industry, dominated as it was by hundreds of smah, dispersed operations, made it difficult . '\

/ to mobilize the workforce behind any coherent set df demands. In 1946, by comparison / with the coast sawmill &tor, the interior had 451 6 employees dispersed across 515

'

1 , * -

operations, as'agaipst l4,084,cpast+ e&ployees in"343 operation^.^^ The total number of - -

woodworkers in the interior is not crearly discernable from the available statistics, but

- appears to have k e n hywhere between 5000 and 8000P3 from w n c e George in the north a * *+'

to Cranbrook in the south-east. Each area had its own peculiar forest ebnomy which C

presented ad&onal problek. 'Prince George, for instance, bas traditionally linked to the . r

northern rail economy and had a vast hinierland of untapped timber wealth upon which to . . draw for f u ~ r e expansion. The union-estimated a potential membership there of 2000,

\

, a

~hieh~exceeded the combined. potemti.-1 of Kamloops, Princeton and Ke10wna.~~ The a

- < - southem indw$tryU, Fgenerall< w i i te,$*richly $ndoujed and. kcording id jhe pnion's - '-%' F " ., .- c B Q

anhysis,%s operators were controlled more d k t l y ,by the reactionary CMA. That ' -

association in British Columbia, in turn; was said to be dominated by the CPR and. < ' -

~o&olidated Mining and Smelting. ~ a l s k b g who was fast beoorning' the District's

resident expert on interior matters, alleged that ."if the operators doR!t fall in line with the

CMA, they cannot ship their products out, because the CPR says no." The northem " *

operators, Iinked into the CNR, apparentIy felt more independent. The 8nion b1ieved the ,

' CMA, which in fact conducted negotiations for both interior diskicts a n behalf of the '

I

, Interior Lumber Manufacturers' Association and the Northep Interior Lumbermen's "

Association, welcomed that set-up inasmuch as it kept the interior industry and the union

decerltral@d, and served as an obstacle to any standardization of rates in the direction of b

the higher Prince Gwrge ~ m l e . ~ ~

Furthermore, h e interior situation suffered inasmuch as there was still, in 1948, a

grea-t deal of organizational work to be done on the coast, and the District's resources were

. . &

strekhed thin. Given the policyof the Intergationat D-tor of $ganization to w.tp drive. * -6.

an anti-communist wdge/@tween the Dismct Council and the inkrior locals, there was a b'0

- '7

* . cenain urgency to attaining g fmt a&eement: Caught' up in the idea of continent-wide

*

post- war strike wave, the District leaders decided to try to leap over all the comple~ities and '

I

difficulties of the interioi and adopt Dalskog 's "one master stroke" policy. When delegates . t- \

who had been involved in the'effort for the previous six mont&ror more to consolidatem

agreement around the 1945 coast terms assembled in Kamloops on I2'March to receive the

word, the Dismct leaders had plenty of explaining to do.

Opposition was to be expected from ~ a n & o ~ s delegate Skkora, a "white bloc" '

. ..

organizer who felt that the operators were too weak to'stand a 25-cent increase: and the . -

union too weak numerically to support an effective strike. ~orewer, ' loggers laid-off s$ce v a

November were not happy about a strike just as operations reopened. His concemswere * .

' . -seconded by Simpson from Kamloops who also wanted reconsideration of the wage

proposal, but would go the limit on 40 hours. The equally weak Princeton local suiponed - .. the Kamloop? position. But even Prince George delegates were not happy withrhe endless

changes in prograkrne. The membership there had been sold so thoroughly by the union

on the 1945,agreemeot, it would be difficult to gain'accept&ce of the flew proposals. The ,

pr&ailing sentiment around the local, they reported, was that the unicp should have .

rt

%grabbed the 1945 agreement while it had the chance. District loyalist Freylinger, who

disagreed with the other Pnnce George delegates, nevertheless admitted there was'a great

deal of confusion as to why so much change had o c c u d in the space of two weeks. The ,* - Z& ',

smke vote issue had been presented ta the lml, he informed the meeting, but it had been

decided not to take the v e undl after the confernee hacfpruvided some more infdrma6on ,

to take back to the members. Delegate ~ a n g e explaiwd that as Prince George was abdut

the highest paid area in the interior, the men figured they were in a secure enough position. +

They would have to k educated that the only real security was through the union, The

repor? from Keiowna by District loyalist Mel Fultcm was of a 75 percent shike vote, the - -

main centre of resistance &g as always, Simpson's Sawmill where "the boys and gids" 5 - --,

. * had reqently been given a three-fent increase. Though supponen of the progntntme, his

membership did not want a strike. '

4

: ~ h k % @ ~ e s t boosters of the 1946 programme were from Nelson a id Cranbrook,

. though the delegate fkom East Kootenay did point out that it no longer appear4 the i6teridi - - ' .

was going for equalization of wages with the coast, given the 25-cent 'across-&-board - v

a s demand. A1 Parkin, union and LPP. stalwart now working our of Cranbrook,notqd-his . * . * .

local was in good shape because bf ,the "psychology of the boys." They had been

organized before; there were even stiU a few IW%' members. The recent RWLB decision

granting raises in only 29 of 136 job categories of three percent had pm ;he local in a . . .

fighting mood. Though they coul4 have signed off the 1945 agreement on hose terns the), 4

% - . - B t .

had decided to fight for-the 1946 -jkogramme. I t was imp&t to remember, orged Parkin, . , 5q

.' --- . %'

that the interior employers were instilled with the policies of the CMA to keep the worker s

d

GL

d-owh to the lowest possible level: "We must realize that we are dealing with not just an

employer, but with the organized employers, and reactionary capitalism." - 0 -

In order to stter the r n e e ~ n g onto the right track, D ~ s ~ c x , Executse and LPP

members, Melsness and Bergen kept before the delegates the WA's role in that larger . j.

m g g l e . Bergren nbted from rhe discussiofi that the interior suffered from the same kind

of dfferences as existed on the coast with respect to degrees of enthusiasm for going the

limit. But, he chided, "how cail. we sit here .and talk about compromising when all t h e . '

CTO, CCL and AFL have endorsed the program that came out of our Convention?" From

rib chair, ~ e n ' ~ e 1 s n e s s summed up and offered a simple resolution to the conflict that

appeared to exist b e h e m Dismcr policy and the concerns of some interior locals. With

respect to the ernplo$ks not king able to take a raise in pay, he explained, it was imponant

ro w d e r s w d that being employed by the Etrrnkr industry, whether by a big or small

operator, was subject to the demand for lumber, and if the "little guy can't produce it, the

big guy can.. .and if we can't work for the Iitrle guy we can work for the big guy." In --

either case, woodworkas could "help to &reate a 1arger.demaq ,for the things we mute by fighting fot ihe ;.age on a n a t i d basis." He recommended negotiations with..

2

Stuarr Research and the CMA at thesame time. On the question of equalization of rates, li

which had dominated the-interior negotiating agenda'for almost a year, Melsness quickly

beshed that concern aside. The main question now was a.25-cent increase. "After we get I \

that we can incorporate equalization of wage rates intopur negotiabonsm the district

secretary assured. .

Despite the obvious divisions and weaknesses amongst the interiot locals, t&e I

motion carried to adopt and suppon the IWA'P 1946 programme, which had now became, . .

according to the rherorical flourish of Vice-President Bergren, the progtafnme of the entire . *

L 1 ,

Canadian labour movement. An action committee for the ipterior was struck, represenhng. ,

a i l six'lwals, and dominated by the four district Gpointees, kin, Fuhon, Ereylinger and . a - a: .B *"

Langmead. Heading into negotiations with Stuart Research in a matter of days, and

apparently spearheadmg the attack of Canadian labour against reactionary capitalism and the

policies of the federal state, District One had been spared the embarrassment of a public

display of the strucnval and polirical weaknesses in its own organization. The interior had

been-brought on board.46 . .

L .

N

As the IWA prepared its challenge to the established industrial arrangements in the 5

provincial forest industry, in-conjunction with a natidn-wide struggle against wanime

wage-price relationships, rhe operators in British Columbia's most important industry were

busy defining their own post-*= saaregy withrespect to the shape of industrialrelations.

While District One was moving towards expanding the post-war playing field, the

operators were looking to narrow it. Nineteen forty-six would be a crucial year in this

regard, as PC 1003 was due to expire early in 1947, with power over industrial relations

/ reyerting to the provinces. The conduct of c6llective bargaining in 1946 would have a :

, - decisive in&ence 04-the &ection of ps t -wq labour policy.

\ 1 . , , . . .. In a l e c m delivered to the bird annual convention of the provincial Truck Loggers

. . . . Asstxiation in ~anuary,x&d published in the m h Columbia i , u m b w . well-known , . . . #'

counsel in labour-management &sputes, Walter S. Owen, reviedkd we progress o f . ' f

industrial unions over the course of the war from open shop fo &on hgn i t i on . With the II . - -

passage of so-called compulsory collective bargaining legislation, the open shop had now @

come to mean any shop without a union security clause in effect. "I think we may deduce," s . .

?wen warned, "that the battle lines are being drawh for further struggle and many more * -

impwant negotiations will be the order of the day in the immediate future, and employers . .

must prepare themselves without delay." In particular, employers must prevent a repeat of

1943 when a'ueified labour m&pent won amendments tothe ICA Act over the heads of . 1 ) -

disorganized bmployer &ups. That development had proven more &sasmus tharr anyme - t '

had ariticipated when the provincial minister of labour succeeded in having incorpokted . *

into the federal Wartime Labour Relations Regulations many of the features employers in

British Columbia found to be most obnoxious. As for the future of'labour relations, Owen

urged the necessity to clarify 'curreni ambiguiry with respect to the employer's right to

communicate with his employees an the subject of union organization. More impona.ntly,

it was essential to "drive relentlessly" toward the goal of imposing financial and legal n

responsibility on trade unions for actjons such as illegal strikes, as a pro a u for the

legal requirement to deal with a cg-tified union. The post-war Gorld of labour relations,

Qwen concluded, was going to pose many challenges to t$e goal of obtaining industrial '

harmony. In particular, the conduct of the IWA in announcing it would take a strike vote

before the start of negotiations marked a deterioration in relations between labour and 9

management. "That to me," owned Owen, "is tantamount to approaching the conciliation

rable wirh a loaded gun pointed at t h e - e ~ n ~ l o ~ e r s . ~ ' ~ ~

CThe fWA9s .strike vote certainly did cause consternation amongst coastal opera/ors

who.h& gro&adcdstomed tl, a more quiescent relationship &h &our over the previdus . .

two years. To calm fears,8tuan Reseaich circularized ik cfients assuring them that though

the& was no provision in PC 1095 to prevent the IWA from taki~g a strike vote prior to *

* .

entering negotiations, the question of the timing of a strike.was another matter. After rhe ' .

union submitted its demands, probably soon after 15 March, the process of negotiation and

compulsory conciliaiion would take at least 73 days. There would be no $trike allowed D

udtil aftsr the" end of May,. and more likely not until mid-June, Smaq assured the

* opei.ator~.~* . I

-- The . operators . in the forest industry wished to continue the pattern of "friendly- A ." <

bargaining" established dqring the last years of the war while at the same time hposing

new restrictions and legal entanglements on the union as bargaining agent. Frm the

side, the union, just as ingenuously mmntained that emergency legislation set up for , -

wartime purposes, especially orders PC 1-003 and PC 9384, provided a& jn&kquate

framework for peace time labour-management relations. That argument had s u b s ~ a & . . e

weight with' respect to the wage control order. But the dispute settlement machinery. -

incorporated into PC. 1003, as the union well knew, predated the war considerably. , I j

Moreover, the union recognition, certification and collective bargaining provisions of the , i

. , r- I order went a good way toward meeting long-sought union demands with respect to !

i recognition and security. A' policy of circumvention in 1946 had more to do with the end

- I

. j

ofa period of North Amencm politics dating from the id-1930s than with the end of the >Y_ -

. b > ,

wartime emergency. As Swan Research and Dismct One entered negotiations in March I &i 1

1936, neither side intended to play the game bj. the old rules, at least not for long. But the

union would be the mast immediate and obvious transgressor, and most vulnerable to

public attack after the shike. The employers' agenda, in the process of formulation well .

before the strike, and fleshed out over the course of 1946, could 6e made to look Iike a

r .f

response to the events of that year, The IWA, and other militant industrid unions, played

right into the organized em~lovers' hands. r e

Armed with a 93 percent strike vote, Dismct One'opened negotiations with ~ t u i r t ' .* -

Research on 21 March 1946. The District Council had been given an additional shot in the

qrm with the recent victory in the International executive referendum election of three left- $

wing candidates largely on the basis of support from District One and Two. For the first - time since 1941, the International executive $as not to be dominated by anti-communists. '

Of particular note was the election of fmt vice-president of CPUSA rnemkr Karly Larsen - from Northern Wash ingo i~~9 While there would be little material benefit for District One,

given the lack of an International s w e fund, the presence of Larsen on the n e g q t i ~ n g ..&

&-+- ' * - ) " -9

team gave a moral boost to Pritchett, Dalskog, Bergren and Melsness, and tended tb

neutralize International president Fadling, who also at times sat on the comrnittee.~

The set of proposals presented to Stuart Research on 26 March was unusual in its

=ope. For instance, one-half of the 60-page wage proposal had nothing directly to do with

the cokchve agreement. Extended statistical presentations and arguments urged the fede'ral

government to adopt a reconstruction programme aimed at full employment and adequate

housing. These items were, of coursk, pai-t of the CCL'S political action programme as

well as high on the agenda of the LPP.S1 While these were no doubt important political .

issues for the union to pursue, it is questionable whether they had any place on the

bargaining table. Stuart Research discussed them under the category of "other subjects"

and confined its reply to wage and hoyr matters pertaining to the lumber industry.52 The .a

IWA, nevertheless, cast its argument for increased wages in global terms. Current

demands and job action to back them u p were directed as much at the wage, price and

social policy of the Can& state as they were at the British Columbia lumber o p t o n .

Such was the orientation not only of collective bargaining demands, but also of

District strategy and tactics. In general, the District had cbmmitted itself to a tactic of 8 %

circumventing the existing federal industrial relationssfegdations governing wages and

dispute settlement. But beyond hat, the larger strategy was not only to circumvent, but to ?;

smash the w ~ l a b o u r boards and federal wage controls. A strike seemed inmiable, in - - . *

fact, desirable. But what kind of strike, and against whom?, Pritchett outlined the '

- alternatives. The woodworkers could the employers after negotiations failed to yield

the maximum demand; or, the District cwld se'ttle for a minimum programme, make joint

- application to the RWLB, and then strike when it was rejected. The latter option held the

greatest potential, but also canied the most responsibility and risk for the leadirs of the

IWA. lntemational Board member Dalskog summed up the situation for the delegates at. , '

th.e 14 April Districr Council meeting: "lf we accept an offer of the employer and have to*

go on strike to foree the Regional Board to approve it, then that will be the ticket, not only

for the W A , but for the entire trade union movement across Canada." But, he continued, *

7

if the employers ~ffered 15 cents, he did not s& how the union could accept without giving

"serious consideration to the whole position of the trade union movement acrpss Canada, ,

because if we accept it, the whole movement would be confined to such an

What might be a satisfactory increase to British Columbia woodworkers might not be

appropriate to their lower paid counterparts in Quebec, or to steel workers in 0n.ario. The

total picrure would have to be considered, not juy the immediate concerns of the British

Columbia rank-and-file. When "white bloc" member Stuart Alsbury raised the objection

that the membership should have the right to accept or reject'anypartial a@&ment.wi.th . ,. -.

Stuart Research, Pritchett immediately pnt the question on a higher plane. If an impasse

were reached in negotiations, the committee would be in constant consultation with the -Lt

International officers and the CCL. The IWA, he explained,-had pled& to &e top '

D .

"Strategy Committee of the CCL that no agreement would +.finalized without first

consulting them, in ~ r d e r to make the greatest degree of coordination between the powerful

e o n s across Canada" At this p i n t in mid-April, however, 'it was recogniz& that the _ -L -- - % -

&WA was far ahead of mryone else in its preparations for a strike. In ordcr to ':give the . @.

IWA the opportunity of seeing the reserves brought up alongside us." the CCL Wage

Coordinating Committee had requested the union to continue negotiationi and "mark time." .

"We thus have ample oppormnity"," the District President assured.womed delegates, "to '-$

give the employers dl the time they viant to consider ow demands." On thai note, Council

delegates quickly and apparently unanimously (Alsbury's reservations notwithstanding)

adopted a resolution instructing the en& membership to u-nd-e final preparation for a

- full stoppage of work, including the establishment of strike committees on every job.54

Prior to the adoption of that resolution, negotiations had not proceeded well for the

union. When the employers used federal wage controls rather than the industry's abjlity to

pay to justie a five-cent offer, Dismct spokesmen were quoted in the press to the effect -

that the strike would be the responsibility of the federal government and against the war

1,mu boaMs.55 But the RWLB quickly threw the onus back on the industry by infdrming

District officers; in a special meeting, thaf the government had-relaxed regulations to the

. extent that the board could authorize any agreed upon increase. Indeed, under an Orderzin-

Council issued on 31 January 1946 amending PC 9384, boards were authorized to grant

wage increases to such, extent as in the opinion of the NWLB was reasonable in the

circumstances and consistent with maintenance of existing prices!? District leaders C

remainedpublicly skeptical that the employers or the government would not stall on a final

settlement. The fact remaiqs, that early in the course of negotiations, thd union's attempts

to launch a natipn-wide struggle against state controls was being undercut by their .

relaxation. What is more, the industry was not about to agree on an inc~kase that District

- leaders would consider a sufficient minimum to use as a narional pattern in any test of war

lakur board policy.

The day after the Qismct Council meeting called for strike readinessand an end to

stalling, Stuart Research inmasedits offer to lOcents, a figure that was, at the very leist,

supposed to compensate f& loss of W g s due to .the reduction of the regular work week I *

to 44 hours, schkduled to rake place in British Columbia on 1 J ~ l y . 5 ~ When the union-

agreed to a joint application to test out new RWLB policy, given the right offer, $e

industry prodiiced its best offer prior to the termination of negodations: 12; cents across

the board, retroactive to 15 Mimh, mendment of the present strike and lockout clausein

accordance with the 1945 hsernationd convention resolution, and adoption into the a

agreement of the 1946 provincial homs-of-work act. Sman also off& to pay overtime in

excess of 44 hours re~oac& to 15 March, Aside from that cancession, his offer on hours - - was really only what would be reqbired by law. The union security issue was to be

dropped. On 28 April, at a mass meet& held at the Boilermakers' Hall in Vancouver, the

union negotiating committee announced they would reject the offer. Their position was

endorsed by members present.58 b

The following day, th'e union informed Stuart that 12; cents would not meet the

increased cost of living plus offset the wage rdwtion created by the shorter ~ e e k . ~ 9 With

- the 93 percent strike vote in hand, the committee c&nsidered the offer u n w h y of a general

membership vote. Without some consideration of the unioh security issue, the union felt

confident in refusing to recede from its 25 cenU4-0 hour demand. District negotiators would

i submit a counter proposal on wages and hours only if the employers agreed to submit the

question of union shop and check-off to binding arbir ra t i~n.~~ -.. ..

Thc confidence of the Disnict cadre was no doubt given a further boost at a May

Day rally .in Stanley Park where the keynote ipeaker from Toronto, C:S. Jackson of UE . . . - and the CCL narional executive told the gathered throng:

1

, . The monopulius have ganged up on labour and the &le in a two-front . war plan.. .to dnve down the living s h d s of the masses to the level of

the hungry '303, and to foment war against the Soviet Union, The way to - stop this @ for the workers to strengthen their efforts for the 40 hour week

'

to assure the' right of a job; to secure increased purchasing power that they may enjoy the great volume of productive capacity, and to be viaant and uniteagainst the war mongers.

C . .

hitchen spoke on-the task of his u4qn in sparh&ding the srmggle for the restoration of 1

, wage levels and t& need for tbe fullest surjpo~z of +e wde unioffnnwemt and public .

* *. . .

behind the IWA struggles. The Lumber Worker noted proudly that one of the lead . ,

positions in the May Day parifde went to the IWA as the drganiiation speaiheading the - .

present drive for increased wages, the $@hour week and union security.b1

. With the seemingly important fust week of May now upon them, both sides to the

dispute geared up for confrontafion. Stuart circularized his clients with news from the CCL - (r

.convention that May'was to be a clrucial month in Iabour relations: The British Columbia

lumber industry, he reported, was to be the spearhead of the CCL drive for higher wages

and'a shorter week, and plans were being hatched for support strikes.62 In response, the .

indusw put its "public relations" campaign into high gear. Stuart prepared a summary

report on negotiations and on 3 May sent sufficient copies to each operation fordismbution

to every employee. The report noted that negotiations had broken off after rejection by the

union of a $1 per day off& which would have put $9 million ($3.2 mi1ii6n by IWA

estimate) in employees pay envelopes. On the other hand, workers were warned, it would

take many m-mths to raover the wages lokt in a G o or three week strike. The.operators,

realizing that thousands of urgently needed homes in Canada md'Great B4tain ,would not - be built if there were a W e , had mBde every effort to avoid a stoppage. At this point,

negotiations spilled ovk into the press with both sides giving their version of the cost-to the

industry of ~tu&'s last offer."

When the parties met on 6 May, Stuart, reacting to the Boilwmakers' Hall &ision,

p&ntedly proposed that the union take a referendum vote on his last offer, preferabli B

S U ~ ~ M S ~ by the provincial Depamnent of Labour. Any increase would now be effative

. only from the date of RWLB approval, and a two- or three-year agreement with annual

wage adjustments was offered as a form of "union se~ur-ity."~~ With the employers' stand

hardening, and the broader l abur picture apparently shaping up as expected, the District

~recu&e met on 7 May to consider a strike deadline. Mine Mill negotiations at Trail and

Wberley were coming to a head with the company's final offer having been made the day . - .

before55 The situation on the Great Lake was reaching a critical point as well, with Pat

Sullivan threatening strike actiofl if no agreement was reached on the eight-hour day by 7 *

June. TLC vice-president James Tho son, at a meeting in Vancouver that same week, \ .

L

called for organized labour to throw its. weight behind the seamen's eight- hour drive as the 2 :

"opening canto" in the general movement by Canadian l a b & for the 40-hour week.66 * .

District One had been asked by the International Executivg to extend its strike date to allow

for coordination of action with the United States districts. Larsen now reported the *

American st+ke vote would take place on 18 May. But there was shll a slight snag in the

interior. At Prince George, final talks had been delayed by the operators, with a big

meeting now scheduled for 16 May. Nevertheless, a general strike deadlind was set for 11 . .

AM on 15 May, with Prike George to come out immediately after the scheduled meeting ' L*

there.67

'Provincial labobr minister, Pearson called Pritchett and Dalskog to Victoria on 8 May

to discuss the situation. In his press statement after the meeting, in an effort to undermine i

the .IWA strategy of proceeding outside of n legal channels, Pearson summed up. $

beautifully the historical watershed that hQd suddenly been readhed in provincial industrial 4

Q

relations: r *

$he International Woodworkers of ~ r n e r i ~ a have behaved themselves well in recent years and I can hardlybdieve they would $ a d i c e the prestige

'.they have built up by ignoring the legal procedure at this stage.. .They have , made wondeifuk progress in the last few y ~ s by o b s e ~ i n g the labour

laws. I cannot see them now throwing away all they have gained. . t

Pri tchett responded abruptly by nbting that the employers could avoid a waikgut simply by 2. -

agreeing to arbipate uhion swurity.68 .a

Going through the legalistic motions, now with the backing of Pearson,"Stuart

turned down the arbitration proposal and announced the operators w6yld apply to -the * .

Wartime Labour Relations Board for conciliation of all issyes. ~ f t e r a-meeting with Pat . :

. r .

of the CCLVand Karly ~arsei,.P&hen announced on 10 May that >ondiiatidn i a s a

G * ,

only another sialling tactic. The IWA ha& offered arbitration on u&n sec&ty only, he

maintained, because it did not feel negbtiations had been edausted on wages and hours.69'

More to the point, union secuiity was not high on the national agenda. There>the struggle ,

focussed on wages and hours, and @ IWA was to lead that struggle. Though for some . ,

%h

interior union agents, union skurity in their poorly organized operations was a greater -,

priority, the District officers wcre quite willing to hive it off from the mah recbnstruction f

struggle arpund which there was greater potential for rallying mass suppor~~0 -@

&th the CCL National Wage Coordina+g Committee set to meet inToronto on 12

May to discuss the British Columbia situation, Humphrey Mitchell, to forestall the

shutdown of a key "reconstruction industry," quickly responded io Pearson's

recommendation and appoint& provincial chief jusace Gordon Sloan as an Industrial

Disputes Inquiry Commission, under wartime order ~k 4020.71 The IWA stuck to its

guns. With the strike deadline still in place, Pritchett proposed publicly that Sloan arbitrate G

the question of union security. The arguments could be presented in two or three hours,

and while Sloan pondered his decision, the parties could go immediately into negotiations

on wages A d hours, with Sloan acting as mediator. The union strike committee hpd

agreed privately, in fact, on 13 May, to come down.to 20 cents and the 40-hour week, on

the condition that union security be arbitrated Although by this time Mine Mill had settled

at two of its operations, Trail and Kimberley for 15; cents and provisions forethe 6e -

introduction of the 40-hour week, Vice-president Larsen urged that "we could db better on

the coast in woodworking." (It is notable that he omitted the interior in his prognosis). / .

~ v e n if Harvey Murphy's pledge of full support for I W A demands had now been b .9

considerably weakened, the strike committee still felt sanguine about the possibility of a

"Dominion strike m~vement."~;\The previous evening 18 CCL and AFL unions meeting

in Vancouver set up a committee to mobilize puBic support for the IWA.'~ On 14 May,

this proyincial Trade Union Coordinating Committee published an advertisement in the '.

local press with the by-line: "CITIZENS!", pledging full support -to the just demands of

in the lumber industry, having due respkct fur and faith in the judiciary, surely would not

s ~ k e w h i l e Sloan's investigation was in process.75 MacMillan ernp1oy~es all received a f l

1

letter from manageriient explaining how the company was defending their basic rights of 1_'

citizenship to be ailowed to decide freely whether or not to join a ufion: At the s&cpime . 0

the empioyers were pressing the gokrnment to circumvent the union by taking a vote of all

employees on their final offer.76 The day prior to the strike, deadline, Van Dusen of H.R.

q ' ~ a c ~ i l & n , Mackin of Canadian Western Lumber, a d the president of the BCLA met in e

Victoria together with Sloan and the Disbict One negotiators in an attempt -to avoid a

smke.77 The operators seed finally to have Sloan arbitme union security, but would nbt . , . . d

negotiate wages and hours with a strike deadline hanging over their heads. .The IWA

would caH off the strike and continue negotiations only after. the industry agreed to --~-na

Ibc

, arbitration of union security and eirher accepted, or resumed negotiations m a new 18

cend40 hour proposal.78

It is wonh noang, in view of the ultimate settlement -trike over a

&nth later, just where the two sides would have stood on the evg of the strike if the union c <

had k e n prepared to back down. Union security was off the table for all intents and

purpdses. On wages, the difference was between 18 cents and 12; cents. Given the recent

~ ' i n e Mill agreement, and the intervention into negotiations by Commissioner loan, a

saw-off at 15 cents was more than likely at this juncture as a final settlement. That would

r: . . have left hours of work as the main sticking point, and it is unlikely, given the aeknpined,

- L - . l opposition of the employers to go any further than the recentlj legislaw #-hour week,. ~ - -

. -

that the union would 4 v e made significant progress on that front beyond some possible -. . .

modification in how the time was distributed. But the unioh leaden had much more on - . . 9 &

their trade union agenda on 14 May than 15 cents, tlte legd work week with modifications

and a binding third party &ion on union security, all applicable solely to the coast locks. -

Similarly, an industrial .relations agenda had been brewing amongst various:ernp~oyer - : I

groups, which, at least for the short*term, saw confrontation kith militant' unionism as - . -

desirable. As Elmore Philpon reported in his Vancouver Sun column shortly before the a

s&e began, "It is no secret that there is a 'might as well fight it out now' spirit arrioag the

big employers and in the unions. That is ominous."79' . & - .

t+ - Indeed, it was evident that fromthe stan of negotiations neither the union nor the

industry-made any real concerted effort to avert a work stoppage. The I W A played the 4

coast negotiations in an effort to gain rime for all the pieces to fall into place: Fighting Fund a ,

contributions, interior contract talks, the-American s p e vote and the CCL's national wage - .

d coordination effort. Stuart and the ~rganized.employen, given the bellicod approach taken '

by District One, saw a golden opportunity to suffer a strike 6ut to dhqredit the British -

. , Columbia trade union movement and set the stage for the repressive measures that would ,

- c

follow in the wake, . -

On 15 May 1946 a general strike of woodworkers occurred across. British ' . . ~olurhbia. There is no dispute from any quarter that ihitially the shutdown was as close to ,

100, percent as was conceivable, except for the Prince George region which came out &n

after its final negotiation talks collapsed. Even Stuart Research was forced to admit in its .

"Strike Communication #2" to its clients, that "except for isolated operations employing

less than a dozen men.. .the walkout is complete." There was less agreement on the level of"

enthusiasm for the strike. Stuart informed his clients that the men left the job "reluctantly"

and that the usual enthusiasm accompanying a strike was "conspicubusly lacking."l Press

reports were mixed. The R o v i n g followed Stuart's line, while staff reporteiL&ie - ,

Fox provided a more balanced picture after a two-day tour of Vancouver Island points. -

M O S ~ men he tr.!ku! to e x ~ c t e d , a shon strike with the government intervening to force a

settlement. On that basis Fox found that regardless of their feelings towards the union or

the strike, woodworkers were solidly behind a pay increase to meet higher living costs: - i

Opinion was more divided on the union security issue. Regardless, scabbing was non-

existent and the picket lines more or less a formality. Perhaps a typical expression of rank-

and-file perspective cam; from David Murray, a young manied man from a crew at cbppef -

Canyon, and residentck'~hernainus. Murray told Fox he did not believe in too much.

. . p6wer for either the unions orthe boss. "But the showdown had to come sooner or later.+ '

ir's just as well it was now. So it's here 'and we'll tough it through."

At least at the outset, workers could count on up to two weeks credit fiom local

merchants Many still had a pay cheque-due. Some companies, such as MacMillan's at

Port Albemi, allowed cohtinued use of bunk and cook houses, while others, like BSW k

closed cooking facilities. Emergency soup kmhens were set up by the union in the hopes

of keeping as many men as possible in camp to keep the closure solid.* When the BSW

bunkhouse was also closed, strikers were to be housed at Graf Mimorial Hall. After four . -. - - .

bus loads of workers still decided to lhve town, local 1-85 put picket lines around ihe bus *

depot and aain station to prevent-workers without permits from exiting. Following a radio

appeal, the local sailte committee was-deluged with foods and supplies, including -150 >

mat@esbs. One local store offered to sell preelves at cost to the emergency kitchen.' -

Vancouver &JQ blymist Pierre Benon did a feature story on Norman ~ r6wn , a 26 A

< -

year old w a ~ veteran, as a typical example of the 180 millworkers on stiike at the British *

Columbia Fir and Cedat mill in False Creek. Brown and his y ng wife, parents of a 3 s 9" year old, viewed the s e e as inevitable, though it meant the end of their Saturday roast,

. 2

their plans for a washing machine and their weekly visit to a neighbowhood motion picture . ' .

house. Brown figured he could scrape through and continue to keep up payments on h i e . .

$2500 fivebedroom house. Wirh a cheque still due on 23 May, $200 left from his service

. gratuity, and $1 1 a week pro&ed in strike pay if needed, the mill hand ho$d the strike

would end before all his resources were gone. He told Benon, 'The boys are solider now

than they were before the stiLke

The focal point of the strike was the approximately 150 companies represented by

Smart Research, employing 32-,000 woodworkers and comprising 58 logging carrips, 36

sawmills, 22 combination camp and mill operations, 12 shingle companies, five plywood

plants and nine miscellaneous processing plants. The federal Department of L ~ ~ O U F

estimated that a total of 416 employers and 38,000 workers were affected by the strike. I .

Outside the Stuart group, there were then approximately 6000 workers diskbuted over250

operation^.^ Approximately 100 of these small outfits, employing betwee* two and three

thousand. workers were located in the coast disdict. Most of these shoestring operations,

unable to withstand a protracted struggle without going under to credi@rs, signed --.

agreements on the union's 1946 terms either before or during the strike on the 0

understanding that wages and hours would be adjusted according to the master agreement

, - r,

-212- * . .*

JI

- / upbn setttement.6 The union attempted to use these signed agrkments to exert public ,, . . . /-

The third general arena of the strike was in the inie .drdrwdttiking ; 1 . employees were spread across approximately 150 different o&rations that were under the

\

umbrella of the CMA. In the Prince George area, the onh he-terior Lumbermen's . Association reported 1250 men on saike against 16 different compakqs. In the East . -

. * '. '

Kootenay centres of Fcrnie and Cran'brook, at least 944 worken from 21 different. -

pperations joined the walkout. Repons from the Kamlo~ps, Rinceton, ~ e l o w n a and

Nelson area were incomplete, though it would be safe to say that up to 1500 workers were

involved in mostly small mtfm throughout the four centres.* In spite of pie-negotiation \

pledges by the District to work towards integrating the ibterior into a master set of

negotiations, District demands were formed in terms of the larger national s,truggleG kith

little regard to the particular needs of the interior locals. These unionists found themselves - r ,

essential! y on the periphery, almost as support strikers to the more' crucial struggle on the ' B

coast. A: no time during the strike was there an attempt made tozopen separate . . negotiations with the CMA, while Smart had no maridate to aet for the interior lumbermkn. *

In the absence of any attempted resumption of collee5ve bxgaining, &e interiorbcals were

t y s t vulnerable to an imposed government settlement as the strike d;agg+ on. - In general, though, given the inherent difficulties in conducting a ~ r i t i i h Columbia

woodworkers smke, there appeared to be, at the outset, a remarkable degree of solidarity. a

Moreover, the momentum of the sbike swept into the ranks many previously &organized t

operations, contributing to an exuaordinary influx of new members during the first week or b-

so. Flying quads of pickets were reported, for instapce, walking into small plants in the - .

Fnser Valley, signing up the workers and shutting down ~ ~ e f i t i o n s : ~ The Vancouver mill

local, 1-2 17, reported 1000 new members. Karnlmps and Nelson reported substantial

edns as well. The Lumber Worker claimed 9000 new members had entered the union b; G

3-8 hiay. Even half that, no doubt optimistic, estimate, would indicate a considerable

degree of rank-and-file &militancy

.doubt a large degree of truth in Al

in the early stages of the confrontatim.lo , There is no

parkin 's glowing assessment that the strike's pop&u-i& . .

was-based on the.fact that the IWA "had advanced a programme that met the needs of every

woodworker." There i s some question, however, as subsequent events will indicate,

whether union leaden actually- conducted the strike with the needs of e\;e~woodworker

foremost in their rniqds. Parkin is also correct in his analysis that the extenhpf the walkout -

caught the operators by surprise, and "made it difficult for them to organize a counter-

offensive," particularly in the face of suspicions that lumbermen wereoattempting to create .

an artificial shortage of Itui~ber for home building as an excuse for increasing prices.'*

In an effort to public resentment against the union, Stuart Research promptly

published an advertisement in the paper: "Lost! -to the end of second day," $468,000 in

wages, 8,125,000 feet of lumber, or enough to build 812,-five-room houses.12 The good

citizens of ~ & t e n a ~ , in a mass public meeting, quickly responded with 'the kharge,

@ allegedly supported by the Vancouver Building Exchange, that most lumber production

was going on to the "bJack market': and not inio'housing construction. .'They supported the

- IWA's demand f& a royal commission to investigata13. -

To carry the lumbeken's message to the doubting masses, Stuart Research, with <

* the help of a special strike assessment of its clientele, began a series of twice-daily radio -

* I _ broadcasts over stations in Vancouver and Port Alberni entitfed ''The Voice of the B.C. ,

Lumber Industry." This programme was &tended to cbunter the IWA's "Green Gold" ' -

broadcasts.which Stuart noted had acquired a large audience over the years. The morning

broadcast would be primarily "for young people and women, while the-nighr broadcast is . for the information df the gener&publi6."14 Tliese broadcasts were used to smear the IWA

for engaging in an illegal strike, for preventing the shipment of lumber and grain via the 6

U.N. Relief and Rehabilitation Admitlistration (UNRRA) to people in Euiope and Asia, for I-

preventing the release of lumber for veterans' housing, and for threatening British

Columbia's fruit crop with a shortage of wooden containers during the most critical part of t

the season.ls Stuart's most 6mphatic attack again& the union, h o w e k , w& *t;d at the

very hean of what this s e e wwld eventually be abmtt-trade union legitimacy. carryrig - ..

forward a theme f m t voiced by labour rn in is~r Pearson the week before the strike, Stuart

branded the walkout "a phony'strike?' based as it was on a union strike vote conducted prior *

to the start of negotiations. S N ~ demanded a supervised referendum of all 37,000 I

woodworkers on the.$l per day offer. Based on Pritchett's own fibwrq that 14,004 of

18,000 members had voted 93 percent in favour, Stuart claimed less than one-third of those

on' strike voted for a strike 14 .weeks before. Not only was the strike illegal, with respect to

6 d its violation of laws concerning conciliation, but surely it is illegitimate, too, on the basis 4

of not being representative of the great mass of workers," and because' no vote had been

- allowed on the industry's final offer. There was no need to mention, though he did, that e

the February vote had been conducted by the union "in a way that would never be tolerated

in any political election outside of a totalitarian country."16 It is worth remembering that

the IWA had waged an intense four-year battle to attain that very thing-legitimacy as

bargaining agent-that ~tu& was now calling into question. \

Now Stuart's @legations weye manifestly unfair and unfounded as far as his i \

charges of illegitimacy'bere concerned. As Pritchett quite rightly retorted, Stuart knew

who the bargaining agem d t - e IWA, not 19,000 non-union workers, which had /

the legitimate rightfo decide on matters of collective bargaining and strike action under

existing law.i7 J3k the fact that the strike was technically illegal made it-easier to brand 't 1

illegitimate, particularly inasmuch as the illegality involved short-circuiting a procedure \ .

which normally would have entailed a membership vote on a conciliation board

recommendation as part of a strike vote. Stuart's demand for a supervised vote on>the $1 a . .

day offer cam& considerable weight in spite of the 93 percent strike vote of February.

During the fust days of the strike two issues arose that were ominous forebodings

for the union of larger problems to come. In the Kootenus, the Creston Cooperative Fruit

Growers' Association, representing 1450 growers threatened with crop spoilage; took over

the operation of Creston Sawmills with the intent of operating at the current wage rate.

Seventy-five workers buckled under to pressure and returned to work. Cranbrook local 1 -

405 sent in 40 flying pickets, and got-agreement from the growers to pay retroactively the

industry-wide wage settlement. The District Strike Committee agreed it was important to

gain the farmers' sup bout such an opening demoralizing other strikers.

Further negotiations tative agreement on the union's 1946 terms, with an 2

'6. adjustment to be ma ith the final industry agreement. Mtchett told the .

A committee that this agreement laid the basis for "a united front of the farmers'and labor

'. against the employers. The farmers are in a bad situation; we -have nb fight with them and - .

we have got to find a way and means of cooperating to save their crops."l*

A second minor incident arose in connection with the loading of UNRRA lumber

from a dock in New Westminster. Two ships had been half-loaded prior to the IWA strike. *

&

Upon the commencement of the strike, the lumber was considered "hot" and longsho<emen

refused to finish the loads. Whenihe powerful Shipping Federation threatened to break off . . *

current negotiations with I L W local 502, the longshoremen's union, in' spite of Pritchett's

urging to call the ~ederationG bluff, felt it was not strong enough to join the IWA's

struggIe. District One reluctantly agreed to have these two ships loaded. Local 502 was

p a of the provincial Trade Union Coordinating Committee, and had been signatory to the

14 May press advertisement in support of the IWA's struggle against the lumber operators.

Local representative Jack Berry appeared before the District Strike Committee on 27 May

and criticize$ the lack of coordination between the MA District Council and its locals

inasmuch as two ships had been allowed to be loaded in Vancouver the cargoes of which

were similarly at ship's side before the strike. Berry noted that his local was solidly behind

the strike, but they were in,their own negotiations and had to keep their "skirts" clean.lg

These two episodes are significant insofar as they indicate the problems the Dismct

had from the very start in maintaining some semblance of centralized, coordinated control

over the strike in the various locals and sub-locals-a problem that would become more

seveqas theanticipated short shike turned into a longpne, and the District committee's

strike strategy became more unfathomable to the rank-and-file woodworker. Furthermore,

they indicate the .. + - problems the union would face in building broader community and labour '. - <

support, beyond mere rhetoric, for its highly politicized collective bargainigg agenda.

Thirdly, the problem of the fruitgrowers in .the interior was only just beginning to be

joined. In the absence of any real atiempt by the Dismct cornmitteero settle the interior d-

4 & '

' strike, the 'fruitgrower issue would come to overshadow the very substantial reasons that

woodworkers in the interior locds had for fbllowing their catst comrades in a province-

wide shutdown. Lastly, the dilemma of local 502 was symptomatic of the much bigger

problem of coordinating the collective bargaining agenda of several large industrial unions

in an effective political assault against federal government wage controls and rhe resurgence

of conservative capitalism in Canada.

Two days after the I W A walkout began, however, District hopes of an escalating

and broadly-based job action were buoyed when woodworkers were joined on the . -

picketline by about 500 greater Vancouver foundry workers from local 289 of the Metal

and Chemical Workers Union, an affiliate of Mine During the fust week of the

strike, as well, two IWA representatives, Jack Greenall and Dick Custer, were dispatched

to eastern ~.a iada to canvas for support, including fmancial Eontributions, from individual

trade unions involved in the wage ~arnpaign.~l Meanwhile, on 18 May, the government

released the report of Chief Justice Sloan on his failed efforts to avert a strike, Because of

the apparent impasse between the parties, loan was at a loss to recommend any further- I

action ,other thana the use of some governmental authority, of which he doubted the

existence, to impose a binding settlement.22 Given the massive disruptions to rhe

provincial economy, the British Columbia Minister of Labour, George P,

r e c o ~ e n d e d to the federal minister the reappointment of Sloan as special commissioner to

try to bring about a resumption of talks.23 a

On 21 May, the CCL Wage b i d h a t i n g Cornrnittee.sent a delegation to present a . 1

& ," %!+ - - 5

niemorandum to Humphtey MitcQell,,reminding the minister of the ongoing strike in

British Columbia, as well as a str-ikk of tmploy& of the ~nacdnda copper and Brass a ?.. . .

Company in New Toronto: it also advisedbe minister of the danger of additional strikes a+

P

of even greater proportions in steel, automobile, electrical; hard-rock mining, chemical an&& ,-:

packinghouse industries; and, most urgently, the danger of an adustry-wide strike in the

Canadian rubber industry schedu'led for 27 May. Specific propo~als were offered starting -* v -

VS C

. with industry-wid-e, rather than plant-based negotiations, and further amendment of the

wage control order to accommodate any wage-hour pattern resulting in a minimum wage -,. %

*bT

for 40 hours up to 20 percent higher than the previous minimum for 48 hours. Further, the a '3

artificial division in conciliation proceedings between labour relations matters an WLB- % regulated wages impeded settlement of the lumber dispute and was creating similar

problems in steel negotiations in Hamilton. Finally, where strikes had already begun, the

committee urged the federal government to accept full responsibility for re-establishing

negotiations, rather than leaving it with the provincial ministries.%

The same day that he teceived the CCL delegation, Mitchell, following Pearson's

recommendation, and satisfying in part the demands of the Coordinating Committee,

reappointed Sloan as special commissioner with broader powers than under his first

appointment, to hold hearings, obtain evidence and submit findings on the full range of

issues under dispute. Sloan was given authority to act as a binding arbitrator on union

security, if both sides agreed, but was to act only as a conciliator on all other issues,

including wages and hours. Pearson correctly observed that the industry had capitulated

insofar as it was persuaded to continue negotiations under Sloan with the strike continuing,

and to waive the normal procedures under PC 103.25

The larger significance of the Sloan Commission was observed by the Vancouver

report which noted that a Sloan-mediated settlement in the lumber industry in the

neighbowhood of 15 cents would put the RWLB on the spot and would serve as a test case ..

providing a yardstick for other w~rkers such as moulders; foundrymen, metal mine . - -

workers and shipyard employ&. One way . - or &other, the IWA was shaping up to bk the . ' spearhead of the cwr&nated CCL-qO wage drive in Canada hither District One would '

be content to have its position as leader of &!,Canadian labour movement defmed'hd

circumscribed by the proceedings and recommendations of Gordon Sloan was another d . .

matter. At any rate, the union made the most of this h a l l victory and. staged a mass.

parade, rally and tag day in New Westminster the dqy after Slo;ln's reappointment. A

' "mile-long" procession of J 700 woodworkers fded up Columbia Street, led by a five-piece

band playing martial music throughloud speakers ori the back of a truck. Marchers, three

abreast, captured the attention of the downtown populace. Gathered at ~ u e e n ' s Park, the - 1 P

crowd roared approval when Pritchett announced that the operators had been forced by r

mass public strike support to resume negotiations.% . . I,,

~islr ict One re-entered negotiations on 22 May riding high, not really prepared to

Sack down wi~hout substantial concessions from the industry, considering how much

responsibility it appeared to be carrying for the entire Canadian labur movement. ' Sloan,

as well as S t u v Research, was similarly cognizant of the attention focussed on the

resumed negotiations. But while District leaders could rally mass demonstrations of the I

rank-&d-file in New Westminster and Vancouver, where many loggers and mill workers

had congregated, there was growing concern regarding communication with the "out of

town" locals and the woodworkers holding down picket lines in the small lumber outposts

dotting the province. =2

Negotiations ran for three days in succession. The employers first showed

themselves willing to consider binding arbitration 9f union security, but the parties ' '.

remained stuck on wages and hours. Sloan went to work on hours, trying out various .

fprmulas for a modified 44-hour week. The union appeared happy with, an offer of a

48/4Uhour split in logging, with appropriate overtime, for each six months of the contract,

but wanted a similar modification in the mills. The employers remained fm on a straight b

44 hours in the mills. Over the course of the three days, the industry spokesmen appeared

-wbse confidence in Sloan, and by the end of discussions withdrew their offer ot-binding m

5.

arbitration. They wouldnot accept Sloan's decision on union shop and check-off, The ";9 .

m----__P--'/- commissioner had apparently manoeuvred them on hours and they sensed a sim&r type of

modifkation with respect to union security if Sloan had his say. Wages were never

seriously discussed, both parties sticking to their pre-strike positions. In thetnd, Stuart

suggested ap&intment of an arbitrator on all issues, with no binding power.n

Pritchett told his committee that ~ l o a n admitted that the operators were hghting

- amongst themselves as to how far to go with the union's demands, With the growing - -

number of small independent operators signing on the union's terms, there was obvious

pressure on the bottom end of Stuart's group to cut a deal. Sloan also informed Pritchett (

that the operators thought the commissioner was leaning too much to the union side and

that they were looking for an impartial pegson whose recommendations they could I

€4 .. . accept.28 Sloan'may have been simply tryingso gain the confiaence of the union. If so,

I'

his remarks seemed to have the opposite <fiect. On 25 May, with the gap wihAing dther

than narrowing, the commissioner indicated that he himself would serve as an arbitrator

and proceed to hear formal submissions from both parties, on the basis of ihich @ would

formulate non-binding recommendations on all outstanding matters.29 Stuart informed his I 9'

clients that this new development brought the employers' position back to that of 21 March @ '. e

and relieved them of any commitment whatsoever with respect to union demands.30 He f

clearly considered negotiations to have concluded for the time being and Sloan's proposed i

tribunal to be the equivalent of a one-rnan conciliation bdard. The union, too,rqalirzed'

negotiations were at an impasse again, but put little stock in the outcome ofrfurtHer

proceedings. After gaining Sloan's assurances that he was not proceeding under FC 1'003, , and that his recommendations would simply form the basis for further negotiaiions, ;he

e 1 I

District Executive gave approval for Bjamason and Marcuse of the Trade Union Research . -. I '

Bureau (WRB), successor to the PCLB, to present the union's case to S l ~ a n . ~ * But when '

the District StrikeCommirtee met on the opening day of hearingd,3 became evident that it - *. . . .

smissed the ongoing conciliation ess as a means to w&ng its demands. 1 ' . .. . '

The union appqen&d not hope to g&n m k h h o g fro& Sloan, h d could expeg . even T . -f I

less from Stuart. * ,

Since 15 May, the District officers a> hid work$ to keeh aS many k e n as possible in

camps and at the mill sites wherebthey worked. Publicly they claimed this w'as a gestuie . _ t

aimed at avoiding an unnecessary delay an4 cost to workers in starting up again in the event * .

oft trike.^^ In fact, as we have seen abave, .union leaders had always been very% V b

'concerned with the problem. of wnsiency. 'During a strike, in particular, i$ was important ~ '

. ' to maintain some semblance of organization in each operation to ensure iolidlidaiity amongst d - C - '

strikers, prevent the possibility of scabbing, a'nd counteract'any moies by empioyers or 4

'local officials to undermine the strike. At the outset it had been necessary t<kiep the hop; 9

of a short strike alive to cany along the less enthusiastic members. There is no indication

that ~ i s m c t officials had pl-ed any measures to ensure the c~ntinued'sdlidarit~ of the

local rank-and-file in the event that negotiations bogged down in conciliation, or the

coordination of events at the provincial and national level did not proceed according to (t .9

P expectations.

There were now several factors that argued for a ch-ange in strike strategy. To,begin h

with, the workers had been out for almost two weeks. The unionwas v&y w G of-where

Sloan was taking them h d did. not want to de traPped'by his recommendations. The k h - 4

6 vaunted national wage action was slow to materialize, and the Arne an woodworkers had

just senled without a strike. It appeared to be time to step up the action in an effort to spark

a broadening of the strike in Canada and to reinvigorate the woodworker rank-and-file. 9

Finally, as discussed at the 27 May Strike Committee meeting, the system established at the

txgtnning of the sn-ike to maintain communications and coordination between the District

* , level and the' locals had faltered The District officers also the nqgotiatcks, and did not. , . 5 - - ,

have enough time to attendfo all the necessary organization$tl details of lhg strike'. MOE b - * - .T r :, .r , -

the point, the emphasis in District strategy on mobilizing b;bad~r supprt inh&$ornfnunity "

and the trade union movemeht further preoccupied the executive. Little timek&&ed for a

the mundane work of reviewing local st& committee reports each moining; an%*nd$qg

out night letters each evening with a ~ i s t r i i t report and advice cLn local Goblems. The local

unions were supposed to produce their awn daily strike. bulktins Qased'dn this

communication with the District. Such an elaborate system was no doubt t

to stamwith, but given the larger concerns and responsibilities of the District leaders, was

bound t 6 - f a l t e ~ ~ ~ e'

heh hew District strategy was designed, in fact, to circumknt Sloan, to revive the

strike effort and mobilize the>membership to a new level& a mass trek down Vancouver

Island which would culminate in 51 mass lobby of the provincial cabinet and legislatu;e.

June 3 was set for the conpencement of the trek. The strike cornrnitfke mption instructed #--=--+

all members, in particular transient unmarried loggers, still in camp to be called in to their \ respective cornmty&ies for fulJ participation.34 ~ h d Lumber ,&ker reported that

"following repeated attempts at settlement, and with the possi 'lity of men in camps losing P contact with develop nts in the city of Vancouver," camp and mill workers from the 4 F

Queen Charlotte 1s&s and across Vancouver 1slhd would be moved to various assembly ( I b . 1 0 1 9

points. Workers on the mainland would congregate in Vancouver in preparation far joining

'the island trekkers.35 A union spokesman was quoted in the Vancouver press as stating

- that the action would be patteemed on the mass trek during the'unernployment crisis of the 0

1930s. Whereas the CCL Coordinating Committee had accused the federal government of .-

dumping responsibility on provincial governments for'setging strikes arising largely from \

inadequate dominion regulations and procedures, this wnarned union agent now claimed

the trek was designed to get action from the provincial government which had been hiding

behind the skirts of the feded g~vernment .~~

. , b

union men, woodworkers in particular. While District One had one foot firmly planted in ' A

the world of the ICA Act, the other was still rooted in traditionk of WO&& Uriity

League and the LWIU. Treks, marches and tag days were as much a part of the industrid

relations struggle in 1946 ai was the process af negotiation, conciliahon aid high-level I

'conferences with government labour officials. As counterpart to the highly-politicized 4

post-war collective bargaining agenda, the IWA readopted strategies that had bcen more

characteristic of the pre-war, pre-recognition days of the blacklist and the open shop. with

the political formation within which the union had reached legitimacy shifting, District

leaders began to straddle two different industrid relations realities in an effort to reconstruct

a trade union practice gro?:ln overly-bureaucratic, brittle and top heavy. But caught

between two different worlds, they were in fact fully part of neither. As the union swelled

with new recruits, unschooled in the heroic days of underground organizing in the

backwoods, and the blood and sweat of the handsaw, it became increasingly trapped in an r.

industrial relations system that had no place for fighting funds, flying pickets, or national

wage campaigns. At the same time it was upon this industrial relations system that the

union's very existence as an industry-wide bargaining agent had come to depend. *

~ a *

The response from the state and organized capital to the union's plannd march on

Victoria was as self-righteous as could be expected. Provincial labour minister Pearson,

friend of moderate labour,37 accused the W A of taking the law into its own hands. If the

government accepted the union's attitude, then "we are heading for a state of anarchy." He '

suggested that the cabinet may n@ meet with the IWA delegation under such circumstances,

especially if the union was trying to force the province to take action in a field of dominion

responsibility. He reminded the union that its strike was illegal and warned that "it is not a

situation.. .people of this country will tolerate much longer." The Mayor of Victoriaiaised

the spectre of severe overcrowding and possible troub!es in his city with the arrival of

thousands of woodworkers, especially when it became known that the United Fishermen

had agreed to supply fish boats to move the mainland march to the Island.3g

More sigrzlficantly, the trek .mnouncement provided an opportunity for the CMA to

call for a tightenhg bf the reins on labour. Hugh Dalton, secretary of the British Columbia - .

Division, wrote to George Pearson requesting discussions on the reconstitution of the

Board of Industrial Relations so as to include under its powers new authority to "ensure

assistance in bringing to bear a restraining influence on elementsain thep-ovince

responsible for certain current conditions both actual and impen&r1~."~9 In an open letter

to Premier Hzp-t, H.A. Renwick, Chairman of the British Columbia Division, set the post- . *

Ir

war agenda of capital squarely before the government and the public. He warned that what

was skillfully being engineered was a "carefully-planned system of staggered strikes, or to

use a military term it is a general strike in echelon," the genesis thereof being "political

rather than economic." In essence, the current wave of strikes was a planned attempt under

communist direction "to disrupt industrial life on this continent with the ultimate object in as

view of destroying private enterprise and democracy." With regard to existing and

threatened strikes in British Columbia, the CMA called for enforce~ent of penalties

provided in law in the case of illegal strikes, provisions to ensure the rank-and-file were

kept fully informed of the progress of all negotiations, and strong opposition to any form - 7

of union securi'ty. The letter suggested that the federal government be asked to freeze all P

wages and salaries for two years to enable indu,stry to reorganize'its.improved capacity;

such action to be offset by reductions in income tax as a way of increasing take-home pay

and stimulating production. In the provincial field of labour legislation, the CMA * +

recommended amendments to the ICA Act to ensure full legal and financial responsibility of

unions, a government-supervised vote of employees on "bona fide" offers made in the

course of negotiations. All strike votes should begovernment supervised md prohibited in

advance of negotiations, and bargaining agents elected only by employees of six months

The public outburst from the CMA galvanized local unions into action and elicited a

p&npt and strident reply from the British Columbia Trade Union Coordinating ~ o m r d i t ~ e

which held a special meeting in the Boilermakers' Hall to draft a re.$onse to the premier.

Harvey Murphy bellowed to the assembled unionists, "This statement is a call for the

establishment of straight Fascism in Canada." The letter sent from the group'to Premier 4

Hart heightened the rhetoric. The mask was off, it said. "The C.M.A. now stands

revealed.. .as a group of Fascist-minded reactionaries, whose object for the day is to smash

all trade union organizatio~s, leading to the final subjugation of the Canadian people." A

mass meeting of labour unions was called for Saturday 1 June at Cambie grounds to protest

against the CMA letter.41

A British Columbia Federation of Labour delegation composed of Pritchett,

Murphy, CCL Regional Director Danny O'Brien and IWA Lnternational Organizer, Geor 7 Brown who had served as a witness at the final day of the' Sloan hearings,

premieg and labour minister on 31 May. They received assurances that the government was

not impressed by the CMA charges that communism was influencing the present ~ t r ike .4~

Nevertheless, if CMA red-baiting was not about to bring immediate provincial action to halt

the strike, its "reform" agenda for the administration of labour relations, arising as it did

from what the goverriment considered to be an illegal shu@own of the most irnpo&nt

industry in the province, would not be lost on the cabinet and caucus when they came to-

redraft the ICA Act the following year. More immediately, the CMA diatribe heigh;ened

the fighting mood of the woodworkers' union, and put it in an even poorer disposition for . ,

acceptance of any compromise settlement offered by Sloan.

The Sloan hearings got underway the safne day that the strike committee launched

its plan for a trek to Victoria, and lasted four days, through to 30 May. The coincidence in ,

timing is significant inasmuch as the hearings and the trek represented two different

strategies. The trek to Victoria expressed a deteriorating commitment to normal industrial

relations practices as a means of gaining important working class gains. But District

m

.2225- i

. , * . - t '

participation in the hearings was part of the legacy of the previous decade's struggle for

l e g i 6 t i o n Having recehed assurances that the ~ 6 a n hearings-were not being &n&cted

as a conciliation board under PC i003, the union went ahead with its participation in a

quasi-conciliatibn board, the impact ~f which would be much the same on the course of &e - -

strike. The District's involvement in the hearings was made even more ambiguous by the u - .I

content of its presentation which spoke as much to the problems of reconstructing $te*post-

war economy as it did to the IWA's collective agreement.

On Ehe first day of hearings and carrying over onto the second, Emil Bjmason of

?ZTRB presented the,IWA case for a 25-cent wage increase. This demand was the heart of *

the union programme for which over 30,000 woodworkers were currently on st i le .

Bjarnason's presentation was remarkable for its failure to represent the needs of those

workers in terms specific to either the lumber industry or the British ~o lumbia kcon&$ . .

His presentation was divided into three parts: 1) point$ relating to the public interest; 2) . -

needs of workers in the woodworking industry; and 3) the ability of the industry to pay.

The fmt section put forward the Keynesian argument for increased purchasing power as a

means of stimulating employment and economic growth. If the national accounts were to

be balanced so that the public could purchse all of the goods and services on sale in a

given year, made by the average corporation had to balance against revenue

received by it. This argument was by no means merely introductory, comprising as it did

the fust 17 pages of the typescript, but was really the focal point of, and set the tone for, 1 .

the entire brief.P3

Now it could t>e expected that Bjarnason's argument on the national restructuring o f .

income distribution wouId tx cast in generai terms with little reference to the British

Columbia woodworking industry. But when he moved on to the points more specific to

the W A collective agreement, the needs of woodwbrkers, and the ability of the industry to

pay, the economist continued to relate these issues to the broader national stage, in part

because-of the orientation of the 1946 wage struggle, and in part because ofka paucity of

" hard facts on the particular situation in British Columbia. It appears that TURB had not

been asked to do research on the coast forest economy to cornparerwith_ - the 1945 wage

s w e y of the interi'm. Ln this respect, Stuart Research was much better prepared to play the

conciliation game "straight up," and provide the concrete facts that Sloan n&ded upon

which to build his recommendations. As much as Sloan was aware of the larger provincial

and even national significance of his commission, his recommendatioas, by the very nature

of the federal industrial relations process, had to grow cmt of and apply directly to the

particular industrial situation he was investigating. Stuart understood this and geared his

presentation accordingly. The IWA, now trying to move beyond the restrictive legalistic -

parameters of federal and provincial industrial relations machinery, was ill prepared to

match Stuart point for point; whereas Stuart was able to dismiss much of the union's case

on wages as irrelevant to the patticular situation of collective bargaining at hand.

Bjarnason's argument on the needs of British Columbia woodworkers focussed on

a critical analysis of DBS cost-of-living figures based largely on hypothetical assumptions

with only general applicability. Only when he returned on the second day to conclude his

brief did Bjarnason submit material, pursuant to Sloan's request, on the actual hourly rates

of pay,of various classifications of woodworkers. Sloan wanted some basis to make a

determination not on what wage increase was due the average Canadian worker, but on

what to recommend in this dispute. Only reluctantly, and with prodding from Sloan and

Stuart, did Bjarnasoabirzg his submission back down to the more detailed level of actual

wage rates paid in the coast industry.44 On the ability of the industry to pay, the union had

at its disposal little concrete information. Its argument, based mainly on wartime profit

figures of only three large, integrated and highly unrepresentative enterprises, was hardly

designed to impress the cornrni~sioner.~~

The union's case was easily brushed aside by Stuart who noted that the WA's

original submission (of 26 March), in addition to the wages demand, dealt with subjects

such as housing and full employment: "These matters weren't discussed in our statement

-227-

in reply ...( which) was confined to the industry in B.C." About the latter Stuart made

several trenchant observations that went largely unrefuted by either Pritchett or TURB. He D

noted that IWA wages were the highest of any Canadian lumber workers, that the average

weekly wage of British Columbia woodworkers in 1944, including the lower paid interior

districts, exceeded those in all other British Columbia industries except coal. The average

weekly wage in the British ~olumbia lumber industry had increased 52 percent since 1939,

second only to the metal trades at 54 percent, while total labour costs per thousand board

feet of lumber, due to decreased productivity of labour, had risen 107 percent in the same

' period.46 Stuart brought forward an industry chartered accountant who, arrned with

audited statements of several smaller f m s , established a case for a more normal narrow

profit margin allegedly typical of the coast industry. Stuart used this evidence to argue that

"wage increases of the size demanded by the Union could only be met by substantial price

increases."47 To substantiate his claims regarding decreased productivity and - - soaring

production costs, Stuart introduced four well-known industry figures who all attested to

personal experience with labour supply problems dudng the war reiulting in reduced

efficiency and produc t i~ i ty .~g i While he previously had not deigned to respond to IWA arguments that lay outside

the nonnal areas of collective bargaining, for Sloan's benefit Stuart sarcastically &marked

that "the present time seems noticeable for many things, not the least is the enrichment of

o w collective bargaining t eeno logy with such as 'industrial democracy,' :high

wages and full employment'." In its submission, Stuart went on, the u,nion used such . . phrases, and then took the figure of 25 cents "out of the air, so to speak, and-attempts to . . . :

justify by references m e of which are considerably removed from thelocal situation."

Taking a page from a source equally removed from the local context, Stuart quoted Sir

Wrlliarn Beveridge from his report "Full Employment in a Free Society," to the effect that

sectional wage bargaining, pursued without regard to its effect on prices, "may lead to a

vicious spiral of inflation, with money wages chasing prices and without any gain in real

-228-

wages for the working class as a wh0le."~9 Though Sloan was not commissioned to make

rvornmendations on price increases, he was certainly aware that his recornridation couM

lead to upward pressure on current price ceilings. Stuart's presentation, laced as it was

with hard data on productivity, profit margins and labour costs, gave Sloan much to draw

on for a consideration of the wage-price relationship. The union argument that a 25-cent

wage boost for Canadian workers could produce full employment without the need for-

price increases was largely unsubstantiated.

The case for the 40-hour week, present@ by Bert Marcuse, was on somewhat . firmer ground inasmuch as there were numerous precedents in Canada and the United

States, the most relevant being the American west coast lumber industry. But the basic

proposition presented by the union that a decreased work week would lead to increased

efficiency and productivity was again only weakly supported by evidence drawn from the

industry in particular. Moreover, as the company counsel, C.L. McAlpine pointed out, the

union itself, in statements made by Pritchett andwitness George Brown, undermined its

own argument by indicating that the American districts have reverted to 48 hours during the 4 -

war in the interests of incriased p r o d u ~ t i o n . ~ ~

On the issue of union security, the union had pretty well given away the store with

its offer of compulsory arbitration. Sloan knew from this offer that =it was not a major

strike issue and was under no pn5ssure to give anything. He could throw that concession

to the indusuy and extract a few cents more in return, along with some modification of the

&-hour week.

If it were effectively to lead the post-war drive of Canadian labour for wages, hours

and security, the IWA had, at the same time,,to deal effectively with its own collective

bargaining agenda. . But, from the outset, the union had oriented its bargaining strategy

around the idea of circumventing normal industrial relations channels. Presentation of

briefs, evidence and convincing arguments was not high on its agenda. At the very

moment that the conciliation process entered its most crucial phase, the union embarked on

a new approach of rallying a mass trek and lobby in order to pressure the provincial

government to help engineer the breakthrough it was supposed to be spearheading. Stuart,

by sticking to the straight and narrow path of conventional industrial relations proceedings,

was much better positioned to get the kind of recommendations the industry wanted from

Sloan. The IWA was playing two games at once, and, as it turned out, neither of them

well. In the "real" worId of industrial relations that it had grown up in, it was necessary to .

play Sloan's game. Or, to be consistent with its stated strategy, the union should have

circumvented Sloan's special commission as it had med to circumvent PC 1003. The

federal government merely cast its net wider, and caught the W A . The union was not

prepared. There was, of course, no guarantee that with better preparation, arguments and a

more conventional approach the IWA would have fared better than it did. But, given the

reality-sat whatever Sloan recommended would ultimately have considerable bearing on

' the final settlement, the union might have paid more attention to its own collective

bargaining agenda. As it turned out, loan's recommendations, and the manner of their

release on 1 June, signified the beginning of the end of the IWA's 1946 saike, though the

return - to work was still nearly three weeks away.

d

On Saturday 1 June, two days before the IWA trek to Victoria was to get underway,

Sloan presented his recommendations for a settlement to the two parties and gave them until

Monday to respond. In a controversial move, he also, simultaneously, released his

recommendations to the press. Ln a brief, two-page report, without elaborate explanation,

he presented his conclusions. Wages should be increased 15 cents an hour across the

board. No rea h ons were given for recommending this apparent saw-off between the

union's lowest 18 cent demand, and the industry's 12; cent best offer. On hours of work

he recommended the straight 44-hour week in the mills and a modified 44 hours i n

logging-48 hours during April through September, with time and one-half over 44, and a

& * - 40-hour week during the slower W t e r ths, with overtime for any time worked in

ti

excess. His region for withholding the straight 40-hour week was based squarely on the .'A -

b .

empl&r argument on productivity: given the urgent need for building materials, and the e

continuing shortages of labour, the 0 3 o u r week "with consequent decrease in over-all

production.. .cannotk justified at ihe present time." Given all that, his statement sdll left a w

clear opening for the d~ to pursue the shorter week in subsequent rounds of negotiations,

and, to that. exteni represent2 considerable progress for the union on the question of

hours. . A

4 - ' If wages were a saw-off, and flours leaned in the direction of the union, on union

security Sloan caved in to the employers. The union had proposed a package linking a 'i

- I . union shop clause with a voluntary revocable check-off. By keeping the financial

arrangements of the employee 'with the union voluntary, but the membership relationship

compulsory, the District could avoid the onerous and restrictive conditions attached to the

Rand award in the UAW case.51 This interesting IWA proposal indicates a growing . .

sensitivity to the ntegative implications of an overly-legalistic . . and compu1sory.approach to

union security. 'The voluntary principle applied to dues assignment would, to some extent,

ameliorate the bureaucratization inherent in compulsory union membership, while at the

same time simplifying the pr&&s of dues collection. But the voluntary check-off was

virtually meaningless as an extension of existing union security, without the union shop

provision. As this issue was to be a concession to the employer, in Sloan's effort "to steer

a middle course," that is precisely what the commissioner recommended. G i v e the

union's own figures of 75 percent membership, (24,000 of 32,000 coast woodworkers) he

did not consider a union shop.necessary to protect its position as collective bargaining

agent.52 @

The provincial government seized on the Sloan report as an avenue for itself and the

two parties to use to extricate themselves from an increasingly difficult economic and

political co~frontation. Hart and Pearson issued a joint statement urging both sides to

accept in the interest of alleviating a national housing emergency, the threat to shipments of

. foodstuffs to Europe, 'and the general disruption to the provincial and national t

economies.53

District One immediately announced it would put its planned h-ek to Victoria on hold .

while it considered its response.? The District Executive had no intention of accepting

Sloan's offer, but now that it had been made public, given the outspoken insistence from

Smart and the organizedemployers that the rank-and-file be conshed, the union was

forced to be seen considering the proposal before proceeding with its mass,lobby. - . e

The Dismct had clearly been outsmarted by Sloan. Had ~ r i t che t t r ea l l~ thought

Sloan would broadcast his report far and wide, in the nature of a conciliation board award,

it is unlikely the Dismct would have launched its lobby undertaking prior to the report.

Now Sloan had cleverly undermined the momentum of that initiative.' The District

Executive was more outraged by Sloan's deft manoeuvre than with the recommendation

itself. As Pritchett told the special District Council meeting of 5 June called to respond to

Sloan's recommendations, "It was wiih a great deal of surprise that we viewed ihe .

Commissioner's actions in presenting these recommendations to the press also; the

inference being that through public and government pressure, he was trying to shove the

proposals down the throats of our Sloan's tactics of trying to force a vote

on the matter seemed to the union to play right into the hands of the CMA and Stuart

Researcn. With the strike over two weeks old, and with those who had not already drifted

into the cities and towns being called out of camps to assembly points in preparation for the ?

trek, any meaningful referendum vote would have required a devastating delay. Not

having a full vote.would add further fuel to the red-baiting flames, particularly in view of

the reasonableness of Sloan's recommendations, and the very good likelihood of their

acceptance by a sizeable proportion of the union membership.

Realizing he had been outfoxed, Pritchett chose to attack Sloan's procedure as a

way of deflecting attention away from an award which the stnke committee quickly labelled

-232: ..

as inadequate. As Karly Lawn told the 3 June executive meeting assembled to consider a

response,&e employer would have given 15 cents and a modified 44-hour week right off

if the union had agreed to keep the 1945 no-strike clause and shelve union security. How

could they justify a two-week strike to the members for something they could have got at

the start?56 In a public r&p9n& to loan, the District Executive labelled the

commissioner's actions "in making--public your recommendations while still acting as

, mediator in negotiations a breach of good-.faith and unprecedented in the annals-of labour."

In view of Slam's actions, he could no Fnger be accepted as "an ambassador of g o d will,

interested in bringing about a fair and just settlement of the'dispute." The IWA, Pritchett 5-*

maintained, had - never broken off negotiations, and called upon the employers to reenter

. . -talks i m m e d i a t e l ~ . ~ ~ Given the union's stated intent to circumvent normal dispute . .

resolution procedures fiom the start; considering it was illegally on strike, and had treated

the Sloan hearings with considerable contempt in announcing a q k to Victoria the day they

began, Pritchett's attempt at moral outrage appeared somewhat contrived, if not downright

precious.

n i s initial response to Sloan was part of a seven-point plan of Bction decided upon

by the 3 June executive meeting. Further, the union would hold a special council meeting

on 5 June to draft a response to Sloan's recommendations, even though the letter of 3 June

from the executive had already implicitly rejected them. It recommended that all lodals hold

special-meetings which would, in effect, ratify thesDistrict Council rejection. Picket lines

were to be reinforced. Dalskog was dispatched to Ottawa to confer with CCL officials.

The Victoria lobby, schedukd for 7 June, was to be held over to the fourteenth as a

culmination of all activity. And /t was fmally decided, in view of the pressure being put on

interior woodworkers by fruitgrowers and the federal government, to demand the

immediate inclusion of the interior in the negotiations with the coast. 'As Bergren saw it,

the rejection of Sloan had laid the basis for bnnging the interior into joint negotiations, and

. so overcome one of the greatest weaknesses, the division of $e negotiations into three

s eph te processes (coast, north and sbuth interior).58 a , ,

f

It is interesting that it was only after the rejktion of Sloan's proposals that the union

turned iw attentioh.to,the interior. Had the Sloan award prdven to form the basis of a . ~

national'wage settlement, the coast locals may very well have cut.a deal, leaving the interior

to fend for i&E against - , thkctionary CMA and the mounting hysteria being generated by

- the fruitgrowers and the federal government. Only after three weeks of strike activiky was J ' *

C

some action taken 'toward winning a decent conmct settlement for the interior locals. Now,

in an attempt ta, stave off capitulation or government intervention in the interior, and in

furtherance of the incre'asingly futile effort to keep the farming communities on the union's

side, the District Executiveoffered a three-week agreement with the fruitgrowers on 1946

, terms, during which time box production would resume and the growers would join with '

the union to bring about a settlement with the operators. Failing agreement in three weeks,

operations would cease. On the coastal front, the union requested an extra two days from

Sloan in order to give locals a chance to-meet and reject the proposals, and the District to

confer with International and national officers, and provincial labour gr0ups.~9

When they met on 5 June, representatives from all locals, including those from the

interior voted unanimously to reject Sloan's terms. The reasons for rejection were plain.

To be& with, Pritchett's criticism of Sloan's procedure became the focus of much of the

discussion and tended to overs'hadow the main substance of the findings in local meetings. .

Secondly, the real measure of the proposed settlement of 1 June 1946 was the pre-strike

off& on wages and hours; the union could have settled on much the same terms prior to 15

May. In addition, 15 cents fell considerably short of the CIO pattern increase of 18 cents,

already established in the United States, and even further below the 20 cent increase for

1946 just recently consolidated for the American woodworking districts without a strike.

Furthermore, the District position was complicated by the potentially divisive nature of the a

'0

hours of work recommendation. Both Bergren and the secretary of the Chernainus sub-

IC

. i 3

local agreed that if Sloan had recommended a straight 40-hobr week, the union wh ld -

4 /' '.

\ /-*# . likely have signed. Though the Sloan proposal suited the loggers who generally preferr&F--

,

to work all day Saturday if they had to work half of it, for mill workers *ere was no gain .

whatsoever over and above the new legal maximum. A too-ready acceptance of this offer

would most certainly have exacerbated tensions between milling and logging locals. Fven e \

given all that, had uniodexpectations, shaped by a broader politic& agenda, been pitched at

a more normal level for the renegotiation of a callective agreement, District negotiators

might still have been able to settle on 5 June with some self-respect. But, acceptance of an

offer "shoved down their throats" by the chicanery of Industrial Disputes Inquiry

Commissioner Sloan, appointed under wartime order PC 4020, would have defeated a ' I major objective of the strike which was to circumvent and finally destroy the wartime 1 legacy of controls and restrictions on ~ a n a d i k labour. It was that objective that had

I - I accounted for the union's downplaying of the Sloan hearings to begin with, and that

D

ultimately stood in the way of acceptance of its results. The strike would culminate in a

trek to Victoria, regardless of the impact on those plans of the Sloan report.60

Meanwhile, with more and more loggers gathering in Vancouver, the problem of

feeding and housing them became acute. In order to raise money for their room and board,

and as a means to generate broader public support for the strike, the union applied to city

council for a tag day, but was turned down. On 30 May, some 600 strikers took to the

streets selling tags, and raised some $4000 before police moved in and made several

arrests.61 On 3 June, 900 strikers and supporters paraded to city hall to hear Bergren,

Murphy, Vancouver Labour Council president Leary and Malcolm McLeod, president of

the Shipyard Workers speak on the main strike issues.62 The sameaay, the clientele of

Stuart Research met and authorized acceptance of'the Sloan recommendations on condition

that the union followed suit. Once apprised of the union rejection, Stuart refused further

negotiation on any matter until the union signed Sloan's deal.63

, - - .

9 3 5 - - Q,! r

5 C 0 < 8 I,

With the union's rejection of 9oan b d his terms, preparation for the trek gathered

momentum, the mass lobby now scheduled for 14 June. An elitborate plan was laid out

with military precision. Nine committees were struck; arrangements made to bring

delegations of up to 10 in from each-interior local. Banners and slogans had to be d

w prepared, and liaison committees were to be es~ablished to provide for feeding and

'2 billeting. Every town and area involved was to 'organize special lobby committees to

receive delegations, as well as help stage a province-wide tag day. Local politicians were

to be approached for support. The departure of local delegations was to be "made into an

occasion for demonstrations, parades, mass meetings.. ." As local delegations moved

toward Vancouver and Victoria, they were to stop in each major centre for rallies, petitions - 7

and fund raising. It was'clea?'fkom the smct and precise organizational guidelines dr&!

up for coordinating the march that the District organizers expected thousands to

~artici~ate.64 But as the union planned the culminating event of the strike, timed to take

place in support of high level talks with the provincial cabinet, events quickly closed in on

the IWA. I *

. In a statement prepared on behalf of the lumber operators, R.V. Stuart announced

their disappointment and concern with repa* that the Sloan recommendaf 00s were being

submitted to quickly-called mass meetings of local memberships where only 10 to 20 <

percent of the workers cast ballots, rather than to properly organized and scrutinized secret

ballots of all men for whom the IWA was bargaining agent. "Continued organization of a

trek to Victoria on June 14 is a strong indicator," stated Stuart, "that the union top executive

is planning to prolong the illegal strike."65' Walter Owen chimed in with a speech to a

sixtion of the Vancouver Board of Trade in which he called for the immediate prosecution 8

t

of INTA strike leaders. He condepned the practice of taking strike votes prior to 1

negotiations as a cdmmunist technique.@ Gordon Sloan also t w k ~ o press in a defence of

his impartiality against the accusatiork of Priehet~ and noted that the latter% final comment

in the hearings had been to express appreciation for the "fair and impartial manner" in

which they had been

On 6 June, thepressure on the union really began to mount. The British Columbia --

Fruit Growers' Associationhrned down the IWA offer of a three-week truce to allow box

production .in ~ e l o w n a . ~ * Its president wrote ~ G r n p h r e ~ Mitchell protesting the lack of ,

, action and' indifference of the federal government, particularly as the Sloan commission had

no application to the intei-ior dispute.69 George-Cruickshank, Liberal MP for Fraser

Valley, called on the federal government to appoint a controller to take over and run all,

British Columbia box factories. He arranged a meeting with Dalskog, who was in Ottawa

on CCL busiriess, to discuss the same proposal, and continue negotiations on a possible 0

truce.70 A call for government action also came from the British Columbia Commander of

the Canadian Legion speaking in the interests of veterans uf&ntly in need of lumber for

housing.7* Finally, Mitchell received protests &om the Chairman of the Western Branch of

the Pulp and Paper Association of Canada warning of the danger of a shutdown of British

Columbia pulp mills due to a lack of logs.72 On 8 June the Woodfibre plant closed down ' -

its 600 employee operation, and Port Alice was scheduled to shut down on 27 June.73

The Vantouver-- joined the chorus in a 6 June editorial questioning the

leadership of h tche t t who whs taking his followers into a."cul de sac by veering away

from .the Sloan settlement." The public thought the recommendations were reasonable. B ~ '

what course, the paper challenged, did Pritchett expect to improve on them?74 In its daily

harangue over the radio, and through the press, Stuart Research continued its programme .

of red-baiting and vilifying the communist leaders for denying union members $11.5

million in additional wages.75 In response, as he claimed? to many requests from

einployees for copies of the Sloan award and of the employers' acceptance of the same,

Stuart Research supplied a pamphlet to be sent by operators to their workers, headed with

the by-line: "Acceptance of t!!e Sloan award by the I.W.A. can put this industry back into

operation again within twenty-four hours."76

Broader trade union support also began to slip. The TLC in both Vancouver and , .

Victoria expressed continued support for the IWA, but questioned the union's strategy. . .

Birt Showler, in'particular, was reported to have regretted the IWA's repudiation of Sloan

as arbitrator.77 Dalskog was receiving similar expressions of surprise from unions in

, central Canada that the IWA h- what they considekd to be a high wage increase

of 15 cents.78 While hundreds of 'telegrams voicing union and community suppon for the

IWA flooded the offices of the provincial and federal ministers of labour during the second -

week of June, that flurry of paper appeared to be the climax of the united campaign in

support of the stril~e.~9 After meeting in Toronto on 7 June, the CCL National Wage

Coordinating Committee voted unanimous support of the IWA strike demands, and sent a Q

- - --.

request to Humphrey Mitchell to bring pressure on the British Columbia lumber i n d u e - d

employers to enter direct negotiations in good faith.80 Hard cash and a significant

broadening of stnke action were nowhere in ~ igAt .~ l~ i

The rank-and-file, too, appeared to be growing uneasy with the lengthening strik&

6' if there was any accuracy to the follow-up report of 7 June of staff correspondenS ,

Leslie Fox. He noted that after the rejection of the Sloan award, traces of bitterness were

beginning to appear in place of the cooperation and goodwill he had noted on his first tour ' .

of island centres three weeks prpvious. '?I found non-unionists willing to speak their minds

more frankly about being thrown out of work and about the union system," wrote Fox. "I

talked to men who were running out of money." Joseph Clarke, a veteran of the 1934

l o g p g strike, but no longer active in the union, complained to Leslie Fox of the manner in

which voting was done at local meetings? All was not negative, though, according to

Fox's survey, as many woudworkers prepared. stoically and with determination for what

was no longer perceived as a short strike.82 But an informal report to a federal official

from a construction firstkd man at Pon ~.lberni who had mixed socially with some mill

hands inhcated that, for many men, rock bottom was c l ~ s e at hand. He reported a general

shortage of funds, with many selling cars or putting mortgages on homes to raise money.

When the strike was first called, he claimed, 50 percent were

nothing like that." Many were saying that the union had blunder-ed

off and would be happy with 12; cents.83 Six years later, on the

enthusiastic. "Today,

in asking for the check-

eve of another general

stnke in the coast industry, Ellen Haglund, the wife of a woodworker, wrote to the District

president recalling the bitterness of the previous strike:

I have forgotten the strike of 6948 and no strike pay I ~ Q unemployment insurance either and any little savings completely exhausted in no time at all.. .I don't intend to come to the "soup kitchen" stage while I have two hands to work with-and that's all the JWA had to offer in the $trike of 1 946.84

As organized capital, government, and the press rallied against the union, and

support from the broader labour movement and amongst the rank-and-file weakened,

prospects,for a triumphant trek and mass mobilization of forces appeared dim. Yet the F

unioil charged ahead, groping for a better settlement and, at the same time, a new structural

framework for the practice of industrial relations, more in line with the emerging political

formation of the post-war world. When the District-Negotiating Committee was invited

inro further discussions with Commissioner Sloan, it was decided that only Prit~hett and -

Larsen would go, "the main direction and force of '(the) leadership" being utilized "in

mobilizing our membership and in ziising the whole struggle to a higher plane." Through

public mobilization, municipal and city councils were approached to back the 1946 r

demands in full. MLA's and MP's were contacted.85

After Pritchett and Larsen met Pearson on 10 June, Sloan recommenced mediation 5

efforts, meeting both sides separately on the check-off issue.86 Stuart agreed to accept a

clause making the voluntary check-off wluntarilv irrevocable. The union submitted a

revised proposal-of 18 cents, a modified security clause "grandfathering" existing non-

union employees, and the Sloan terms on hours as a basis for future negotiations. Stuart

- flatly refused to discuss any other issues or to negotiate directly with the union.87 In an

attempt to khip up the membership then being rallied for the mass trek and lobby, Pritchett

-239-

issued a statement accusing Stuart of refusing to negotiate directly in spite of Sloan's -

request to do so. Both Sloan and Stuart quickly denied that .Stuart had been asked.88

Pritchett then sent an open telegram to Sloan, calling for negoriations on the basis of

Sloan's 1 June proposals to be held under the chairmanship of Sloan. Given the District

President's earlier position with respect to Sloan and his report, Stuart could afford to

mock Pritchett's renewed enthusiasm and did so in a lengthy and open response,

demanding the union to stop stalling, end its illegal strike and sign for $1.20 a day.89 The

Sloan terms hung like a dark cloud over the District's planned trek.

In Ottawa, Dalskog's similarly well-publicized meetings with Fraser Valley MP

George Cruickshank and the federal minister of labour, called to engineer some way out of

the increasingly critical impasse in the box producing sector of the interior industry,glso

yielded no positive results. Rather it drew public attention to another key weak point in the

strike-the threat to the province's agricultural crops and dairy industry. On 9 June,

Mitchell rejected Dalskog's contract terms for a three-week truce \n the interior box mills, Cb

though negotiations continued with C r ~ i c k s h a n k . ~ Sensing that events were turning their

way, the interior operators' association requested George Pearson, in his capacity as

chairman of die RWLB, to authorize employers to implement a ten-cent increase over the

heads of the union, on condition that the dominion Wartime Prices and Trade Board

allowed a concomitant increase in prices.gl Given the increasing pressure to reopen

; operations in the interior, md the rehive weakness of the interior locals, District Secretary

Melsness, on the eve of the climactic trek to Victoria, wrote to acting Prime Minister Isley

offering the union's assistance i n saving the fruit crop $y returning to work on the basis '33

that the government take over the box industry and negotiate an agreement with the

The two days prior to the planned mass lobby, District Council 0r.e and Stuart

Research made their final bids for public support with large block advertisements in the

daily press.P3 While the reading audience was being entertained by public jousting over

who was responsible for prolongation of the strike, Wtchett and Larsen, continued

discussions with Sloan. Then, on the day of the trek, they met with Pearson, Hart and the

cabinet, seeking provincial government support for dominion intervention into the interior

dispute. Further, with all the pressure on the union to conduct a supervised vote, District

negotiators advanced the clever plan of a government-supervised referendum on a union

shop, to be held after a return to work, the result, if affirmative, to be binding on the

industry.94 It is difficult to believe that the District Officers had any hope of gaining either

government or industry approval of such a scheme. If they did, it clearly depended on the

degree of mass support for the strike that could be shown still to exist through the turnout ,

for the trek and lobby. \

On 12 June, union spokesmen had made a well-publicized request to Mayor- George

of ~ i c t o n a to make the Camp McCauley barracks available to house 7000 10bbyists.~~ In

fact, the long-awaited and much-heralded mass m k drew fewer than one-quarter of that

number. From 6-700 woodworkers and supporters from Vancouver composed the large

part of a cbntingent of 850 who spent the night before in Nanaimo. On route to Victoria the

next morning they were joined by 6-700 more trekkers from Counenay, Comox,

Ladysmith, Alberni, Duncan, Chemainus and Cowichan. In Victoria, the approximately

1500 trekkers were joined by more demonstrators-1500 according to the Lumber Worker,

500 according to Western Business and Ind~s t ry .9~ Many of these latter were non-

woodworker supporters who had come to the capital to help swell the ranks. No doubt the

enthusiasm and colour of the three-mile march through Victoria was impressive, despite the

downpour of rain. With each local in its place, and headed by the Women's Auxiliaries

and veterans, the parade moved towards the legislature, the Boilermaker's sound truck

playing records of labour songs and the "Labour Arts Guild" entertaining the sodden

masses with "cheery labour songs.'97 No amount of hoopla, however, could disguise the

disappointing turn out. The reported that the decision of the union to call off the

Victoria lobby after only one night was regarded as a promising indication of a quick

settlement.98 More to the point, the embarrassingly small turnout had had very little impact

on the employers or the government. As Stuart exulted in his 14 June circular to his

clients, the trek to Victoria and interview with the provincial government had been

"unsuccessful from the union's point of view." Attendance of strikers from the mainland

and Island points outside Victoria, Stuart reported, was only a fraction of the number

expected and asked for by, union leaders. The total attending the mass demonstration did

not exceed ten percent of those claimed to be on stnke by the union. The strikers

delegation, according to Stuart, got no encouragement from the government, but was urged

to accept the Sloan report and get back to work,"

With the failure of the IWA's mass culmination to impress the provincial

government or the industry, the strike on the coast was for all intents and purposes over.

But before the strike on the coast could be tekinated, some form pf settlement had to be

extracted for the interior. Dalskog, still in Ottawa during the trek, now made public the

union's offer to the government, delivered through George Cruickshank, to send its

employees back into the box factories if the government took them over.'* But while the

dominion government ruminated, it was necessary to keep the coast negotiations going and

the coast stnkers on side. Thus, when the District Council met in a special meeting on 16

June to consider the new check-off proposal, it heard a recommendation from the District

Executive for a return to work based on the original Sloan proposals plus the voluntary i

irrevocable check-off and a referendum yote of the membership on a modified union shop,

as well as the inclusion of the interior in the final settlement. Pntchett warned delegates to

expect problems on the latter two points.

This proposal was preposterous for several reasons. First, Stuart would certainly a

never have agreed to a poll of unkn members only on a union shop clause. Secondly, the

union had long-since relegated the union security issue to subordinate status in the strike.

-242-

To win this new demand would have required an impossible prolongation of the strike over

that one "non-strike" issue. Thirdly, any extended prolongation at this point was out of the

question. Dalskog and Jack Greenall who had both recently returned from the east had u

rather bad news from &at front. The financial support from other unions promised through

the coordinating committee had not materialized. That lack of money, Dalskog intimated to

the delegates, would influence IWA strategy. Greenall med to put a better face on this state &

of affairs, noting that thg, IWA strike was not big news back east despite its unprecedented . -

size. "They have their own fights," and so, he informed the council not to expect much

financial help. Rather, it was necessary to consolidate the union position around the

current proposal and wait for the labour movement to catch up. The normally optimistic

Karly Larsen noted that after three weeks, the bosses usually started to work intimidating

the workers. If finances were low, he warned, weak spots would begin to show in the

organization.101 It was evident, then, that the position on union security was largely a

stalling tactic to provide time to arrange an agreement with respect to the interior. As well,

i t was conceived as a useful propaganda tool to be used against the operators to help . >

consolidate the union membership prior to a return to work. As Larsen explained, it was

possible to emerge from the strike with the greatest possible results, if the union was very

careful in seeing "that adverse publicity did not destroy the tremendous gains we have in

the makrng," if the union could go out and call the biggest meetings of the membership yet,

and pass this plan with a'bigger vote than that which rejected the original Sloan proposals.

Quite bluntly. Larsen explained, "the purpose of this formulation is to actually turn the

heat, with the support of the public, on the provincial and federal governments and Sloan,

to force the operators to agree to a vote amongst the membership, which they have been

hollering for'all along."lm

The District executive had absorbed the lesson of its hasty and ill-conceived

rejection of the original Sloan proposals, as demonstrated in the disappointing trek and the

falling away of broader labour support. The task at hand was to engineer a return to work

with the membership united, in spite of the obvious failure of the strike, after 3 June, to

generate any concrete results. To accomplish this task it was necessary to undermine

employer and state propaganda on the issue that was potentially most damaging and

divisive4ack of consultation with the membership. The union would show its members

and the public just how sincere Stuart was with all his protestations about the democratic

rights of employees.

The day following its special meeting the Council reassembled to hear Sloan's

expected response. The federal government could not get agreement from the employers to

abide by a referendum decision and so could not proceed. All Sloan could recomniend was

a clause added to the check-off article stating that an employee could enter a voluntary

irrevocable agreement with the union to continue to have dues deducted through the life of

the agreement. This proposal, Pritchett noted, was meaningless. Sloan also responded

that his commission did not cover the interior, so neither could any agreement he

recommended. lo3

With Sloan temporarily out 9f the way, the Council proceeded to pass the main

recommendation of the Executive calling for the referendu.m, the irrevocable check-off, and *

the inclusion of the interior. In a press release, it now called directly oFthe federal

government to conduct the vote. There was virtually no chance that the state would

respond positively, and the District Council knew this.lW But there was hope, as the

District officers well knew from Dalskog's stay in Ottawa, that the dominion government

would move to settle the interior dispute. Dalskog had developed a good working

relationship with George Cruickshank. In fact, the union had even quoted the Liberal

MP's supportive remarks in a 15 June newspaper advertisement aimed at countering

negative employer propaganda. Cruickshank was prominent among a group of seven

British Columbia members, from all three federal parties, who called strongly on 17 June

forthe government to appoint a con~oller to reopen the British Columbia food container

factories. Mitchell appeared adverse to intervene in a dispute where the "right degree of -3

conciliation" had not been pursued.lo5 But with the local press running articles with by-

lines such as "Blight over B.C.," the mingter on the following day appointed Gordon Bell e

as controller of the box factories and shook mills in the interior, and of sawmills and

lumber camps supplying them. All employees of these plants w q e ordered back to work

and the operators were ordered to enter into negotiations with the union with a view to

settlement of the dispute. At the same time, Sloan received a new commission extending

'his jurisdiction to include

union.106

With that news, the

the entire dispute between all interior operations and the

District Council rushed back into session on 19 June. The

District officers had been granted a 24-hour extension of the back-to-work order ta give-

time for the council to meet. So anxious was the executive for some small victory in the

face of capitulation, that this delay was heralded as setting a precedent for organized labour n

in postponing the enforcement of an order-in-council. The union went on quickly to

endorse the principle of the controller, even though, it was admitted, the order constituted a

strike-breaking tactic. The decision of the officers was that the inclusion of the intgrior,

with Sloan appointed as commissioner, was a tremendous advance, placing the union in a

position to be able to bargain collectively for that section of the industry for the first time. . %

There was, of course, no guarantee of a true industry-wide contract, applying the terms of

the coast master agreement to the interior.

Larsen, in speaking to the recommendation that the strike be terminated on 21 June

at 1 1 AM, admitted that i t might be asked-why the District Executive had not settled two

days befork. Since then, he claimed, there had been two important gains-the extension of . .

union security and the inclusion of the interior in negotiations. In fact, the irrevocable

check-off clause had been theirs since 14 June. The real change had been the government

order-in-council, which arrived just in the nick of time in the opinion of International Board

member Dalskog. He asked the council to realize that if this break had not come when it

did, i t would have been necessary for the union to alter its position since "we are

f f conducting this fight alone." Pritchett seconded this sentiment when he noted that one

factor de&r&ning the present stand was the national picture, and the lack of reserves they

had expected. There was no guarantee that sufficient forces would come into play within

the next week to give added strength, but asked the council to consider that the union had h

"driven into the ranks of monopoly capital as far as we can at this time." Now the task was

to halt, consolidate and return to the job "as one man and woman" as they had come on on

15 May. Indeed, given the disastrous prolongation of the coast strike for over two weeks

with almost nothing to show for it in terns of the coast agreement, the District officers had

reason to be worried. Though the union membership had swelled by upwards of 10,000,

that could prove to be a considerable problem if disgruntlement took hold amongst a rank-

and-file unschooled in the union's struggle for recognition.

To combat possible dissension, the union resorted to some creative tactics which

presaged a new style of industrial relations that would emerge from the 1946 strike. In an

effort to turn the largely meaningless voluntary check-off clause into a meaningful

arghizational tool, the union adopted a plan to have as many members sign the revocation.

waiver with the union as possible during the return to work. As Pritchett optimistically told

the council delegates, "This will put us back on the job with union security." Dalskog

seconded Pritchett noting that the check-off must be properly handled by the business d

agents: "To the degree with which our workers go back on the job united, will we maintain

our organization; and no contract on a piece of paper is wonh anything unless you have the

organization behind it to see that it is live up to."lo7

- R.V. Stuart, always sensitive to important nuances in the collective bargaining

relationship, reacted rather hysterically to this new union tactic. Between 20 and 25 June,

on three different ra&o broadcasts and in l&e newspaper advertisement, ~ t u a r t ~esearch +

assured employees that "there are absolutely no 'ifs,' 'ands' or 'buts'-no conditions at all . .

attached to lumber workers returning to work either in a sawmill or in a logging camp." . .

Employ-ees were not obligated under any ferns of the Sloan award, Stuart assured, to sign

any paper waiving the right to revoke the check-off. The 1946 agreement was, in this

respect, "a guarantee against inroads of the hard-fought freedoms that are now theirs.. .and

ours as Canadian citizens."lo8

The voluntary check-off itself, which was part of the original Sloan

recommendations, while it would possibly ease the burden of the job stewards and free

them up to deal more effectively with grievances, was a very weak f 6 m of security. With d

some creative tactics of his own, St!lart sought to turn it into a vehicle for undermining the

security of the union. In August, he distributed copies of a form to all member companies

for use in recording the extent of the check-off. It is important, he urged his clients, that

the information be complete and up to date "as it will be of great assistance in future

negotiations with the union. ..it will give the industry a fairly reliable picture of IWA 1

membership strength in the industry." As well, on the basis of these monthly repprts,

Stuart would keep his clientele advised of any fluctuations in union membership.1•‹9

If the achievements on the coast fell far short of original. expectations, similarly, the

settlement in the interior was modest in comparison to prenegotiation aims. The notion of

bringing this first "industry-wide" interior contract into line with the coast agreement had

been largely lost sight of prior to the start of n6gotiations when the District found itself

spearheading the wage campaign for Canadian labour in general. There was thus little hope ;

of achieving coast contract tzrm in the interior when the District resurrected that demand in -

late June. The other more tangible long-standing objective in the interior was to equalize,

wage rates across the different regions. Towards this end, the union attempted to establish " .

its so-called "Kamloops scale," drawn up from the findings of the 1945 PCLB survey, F the basis for a 1946 wage settlement. * I ' 1

/

The federal back-to-work order affected mainly operations in the southern interior. ! ',

In Prince George, where members had been reluctant to strike for the 1946 coast terms to

begin with, 1600 stnkers held out for some concrete .-

in vain. As %rice George delegate Range told the

assurance that their effort had not been

1947 District Convention, "what were

97- i

we going back to work for in the northern interior? We had been out at that time for thirty

days. We didn't have a thing. All we had was our thirty days lost time, so we staykd

out."llO To effect a return to work in Prince George, an interim agreement was signed on

26 June providing for the c&t check-off clause, the 44-hour week a ~ d an agreement from

.employers to cany on with wage negotiations. On that basis, Prince George went back on 4

27 June."'

When negotiations resumed, the union was clearly under considerable pressure x

from its interior members to produce some decent results. Dalskog, the main negotiator,

demanded 15 cents across the board, based on'the Karnloops scale, a base rate of 67 cents

and an actual agreement embodying all the clauses of the 1946 coast agreement. With

Sloan acting as mediator, another interim agreement, on wages, was struck on 5 July

providing a 10-cent increase across the board and establishing a common base rate B

throughout the interior of 67 cents per hour, thus eliminating both the widely diffferent rates

within the region, and bringing the new interior rate up to the old common labour rate on

the coast. A 90 day probationary period was introduced similar to one previously in force

only in Cranbrook, which ameliorated the effect of the range rates in many job categories.

With further help from Sloan some inequalities in e x i s t i n i ~ ~ ~ ~ directives would be

eliminated in subsequent negotiations with each party entitled to adjustment of eight such

categories in ea~h~existing RWLB schedule.ll*

The union made a last-ditch attempt to establish a broad equalization 4 of rates across

the interior by claiming that the 10-cent increase should apply to its own Karnloops

conference scale. Dalton insisted that the spread in ages between north and south be J perpetuated in the present proposed wage increase.l13 Dalskog's demand that the interior

master agreement incorporate all the coast language on such things as seniority, vacations *

with pay and safety and health, met with similar resistance from Ruddock and Dalton who

told Sloan they would "not negotiate on the basis of the Coast agreement, but instead on an

agreement which had been discussed repeatedly with the I.W.A. over the eighteen previous f

months at many points in the Interior."l14

Nonetheless, when negotiations concluded in late July the gains were quite

substantial; in many ways more significant t h e those attained on the coast. As Pritchett

somewhat hyperbolically told some skeptical interior delegates to thee1947 cdnvention, "it

was a tremendous accomplishment for the membership in the interior locals who had been

newly organized, organized overnight, to jump over the entire struggle that we have been a

through in twenty years, and in a short period esbblish for the first time an indusdy wide ,

contract.. ." But there was a downside to the 1946 interior strike as well which Pritchett ..

noted, inasmuch as the interior membership was new and "were on' the fringes. of the

situation, as it were."l15 That situation produced the kind of discontt~lt and criticism of the

long-en!renched District officers that surfaced at the 1947 convention.ll6 This fvst so-

called "industry-wide contract" in the interior followed more or less on the caattails of the

coast settlement and had as its catalyst the attempts of the interriatiaria1 hiractdr of -

organization, George Brown, to drive a wedge between the District Council and the new 4 ...

interior locals. Moreover, it grew out of the accidental circumstances of the box industry's

strategic economic importance, and was mediated by a federal government commissioner

who, fortunately, had a strong commitment to the principle of industry-wide bargaining.

Even at that there were still important discrepancies between northern and southern contract

terms. It came about at the beginning of a phenomenal post-war explosion in interior

lumber production, following hard upon the already considerable growth during the war.

The interior locals, by and large, lacked the degree of stability and organizational strength - ---_

that had been achieved in most coast locals through a long, hard struggle. It remained to be s

seen whether, to use Dalskog's words, the piece of paper on which the contract was

written was worth anything at all.

* The strike of 1946 was notable for a variety of myths that sprang up aruund it, -

some of which have been perpetuated by various chroniclers of these events. The first I

myth is that the IWA spearheaded a national drive to smash @rough wage In

. fact, the union had been notified by state officials well before tRe strike that any mutually

agreed upon settlement would be passed by the RWLB. Mine Mill settled with

Consolidated Smelting r i a t at the start of the IWA shike for 15; cents and 40 hours and set

the general pattern for the subsequent mine sett1ements.l l8 The IWA settlefient, which

was next in line, certainly reinforced the pattern, bu't if there had been a federal ceiling, it

was already pierced well before 20 June. Moreover, the IWA's designation as spearhead

, was used by Stuart to undermine the union's position during conciliation proceedings, * .

inasmuch-as he claimed the 25:cent wage demand had been developed.outside of British

Columbia and had no particular relation to the situation prevailing in the lumber industry

where employees were wongs t the best paid in the country. i'he wisdom of the CCL

Coordinating Committee in permitting the IWA to a5t in this capacity is questionable in

t e r n of theunion's ability to build a strong case in its own particular District negotiations. . 6

The IWA was a Large, seemingly strong and militant industriafoniun, wel1,positioned in the

very important British ,Columbia lumber industry to win a substantial industq-wide

increase. But in the more conventional world of industrial relations, it was unfortunately

encumbered by the third-party bureaucracy. District One had also to play Sloan's game to

do the job effectively. Its famed militancy was ultimately tamed by the deft manoeuvrings

of Sloan and Stuart.

Moreover, the 1946 woodworkers' wage settlement was not even uniform across

the province. As onea bitter Prince George delegate to tbe 1947 District convention

lamented, .- ", . . .the Coast boys got 15 cents and that's all we hear now-'The Woodworkers '.

in British Columbia got a 15 cent increase. They set the pattern for Canada.' Sure, the 4'

boys on the coast got 15 cents but what did the interior get?"119 The coast increase itself,

heralded as a great achievement on 20 June when

January 1947 was found to have barely covered

accepted, upon more sober reflection in

the loss in wages due to the dkreased

vmdaveek, higher income tax and increased cost of living. By the beginning of 1947,

accarding to the District officers, the average whdworker's net gain in annual earnings

had been reduced to $1

The second most notable myth, expressed very recently to thesauthor by Emil V

Bjarnason of. the Trade Union Research Bureau, was that the 1946 strike effectively

established the. union shop in the coast Iumber industry.1z1 Indeed, Pritchett's assessment

right after the strike had been that the voluntary irrevocable check-off paved the way for the

full union shop on the job through the concentrated effort of e v e member and job

steward.122 Writing from a more critical point of view, John Stanton has recently argued

that the achievement of the check-off in 1946, though a great convenience, helped dissolve

the close ties between leaders and members established in the prereco.gnition.days, and led

the union down the road to bureaucratization. After 1946, Stanton recalls, "union dues

were deducted from pay cheques imd paid by the employer to the locals once, a month.

Each employee, as he signed to authorize this deduction, alsc signed' up for union

membership and was automkcally adrnitted.,Becoming a member of thg IWA was no

longer an important event in a workers' lik"123 d

Dismct One, on the coast at least, by virtue of a high level of union membership and

the voluntary check-off did have something resembling union security. But it was not a

contractual guarantee. It was still something that had to be worked at to maintain. In fact, *

with the return to work, the job steward had to scramble around to get employees to sign a

waiver before there was anything approaching a union shop, and that, only for the life of.

the current contract. Workers had to request the check-off from the employer, and,"in the

case of new employees, thzr prhocess would normally follow their being signed up by the

organizer. The 1946 settlement, in short, did not take District One as far down the road

towards full union security as either its supporters or its detractors have maintained..

The third myth about the strike, reiterared in One Untqn xn Wood . . , is that it resulted

in "An industry-wide contmg covering the interior as well as coastal. operations."l24 It had

indeed been the union's original intention to bring the interior locals into one master set of :

negotiations which would result in a province-wide master contract. In the end, the 1946

strike produced only asemblance of an industry-wide settlement. In fact, though the

interior dispute was settled through one set of mediated talks under Gordon Sloan, contract

terms and wage scales differed from north to south. The fact of an industry-wide strike in

1946, by its very nature, appeared to produce a kind of industry-wide settlement. The

following year, with09 the unifying force of a strike, collective bargaining in the interior /

fractured back into its component parts. Nineteen forty-six did bring about union

recognition through most interior operations, no mean achievement in itself, as Pntchett

noted, but a far cry from an industry-wide master agreement for all British Columbia

woodworkers. Y

A fourth myth relates to the establishment of the 40-hour week in the last half of the

contract in the logging sector. The District officers believed that once established in the

logging industry, "the very heart of the union," the 40-hour week would never be

relinqui~hed.12~ That prognosis proved to be essentially correct, and the 1946 settlement

was an important milestone on the way towards entrenching the 40-hour week on the coast. I

Still, given the tendency amongst a significant segment of loggers to opt for longer hours if

available, and the desire of employers to undermine the 40-hour limit through mutual

agreement with their employees, there is some question whether the union had won a

shorter week or just more overtime work for some of its members. Though the 40-hour

week was, in accordance with-Sloan's recommendation, established for the last six months

of the collective agreement in most coast logging operations, it did not rest easily at the

heart of the industry either with the employers or with many loggers (see chapter eight .

below). .-

sp The fifth myth surrounding the 1946 smke related to its ch&acterization as part of a

broadly-bas& mass movement of workers, farmers, small businessmen and ordinary

citizens, directed against the reactionary policies of monopoly capitalism and American

imperialism in the post-wm era. District leaders were certainly sensitive to the LPP post-

war analysis with respect to the intensifying world conflict between imperialism and

socialism, and Canada's role within the framework of Vnited States international strategy.

That perspective had condi tioned the entire stnke agenda from January 1946 oriward. And,

quite definitely, the I W A did manage to generate substantial public sympathy, as witnessed

by its successful mass demonstrations, tag days and considerable moral support from the "

national and provincial labour movement during the early stages of the strike.

Nevertheless, after the 3 June rejection of the Sloan report, ~ i s k i c t One experienced a

noticeable weakening of community and labour support. The last two weeks of the strike

witnessed the rapid evaporation of the broad political agenda and a return to the more

mundane world of the collective agreement. The trek and mass lobby of the government,

far from being the peak, or political high point of the strike, as myth would have it, only

highlighted its d e n 0 ~ e m e n t . l ~ ~

The 1946 strike was conceived in broad national, if not international terms. The

stnke itself &d not grow out of a process of collective bargaining, but was premeditated on , - z.

the basis of a more far-reaching polit~cal agenda, bolstered by pent-up rank-and-file wage . e

demands. I t was this basic character of thg strike which so irked both employers and - h

politicians, and which conditioned the union's attitude to the process of negotiation and

conciliation. This attitude laid it open-to attack from organized capital and the state for

failure to give appropriate consideration to either the employers' pre-strike offer or Sloan's

"reasonable" recommendations for a settlement. As Pritchett himself admitted in his post-

strike analysis, the Sloan report was "rejected by the union in a manner which constituted a

major error on the part of the union and tended to improve the position of the employers in

the eyes i f the public. The rejection also tended to isolate the union from a large section of

support."l 27 Reactionary elements amongst the province's employers- seized on this

adrmssion as further evidence of "growing signs within the ranks of labour that legislation.

to ensure secrecy of ballot on major decisions in union affairs would be ~elcome."l*~ I

If the strike did not live up to expectations politically, it did set a pattern for future

trade union practice in the British Columbia woodworking industry. The trek, harkening

back to the halcyon days of the 1930s, also presaged the eventual march out of the IWA of

its communist contingent into a "squeaky clean," independent, militant Canadian

woodworkers union in October 1948. The Fighting Fund, and the voluntary check-off

proposal which formed part of the District's original union security demand, were , .

reminders that the union still had strong roots in the militant, laissez-faire, days of the open

shop and blacklist. Dalskog defended the Fighting Fund concept from attack by a fellow

District One delegate at the 1946 International convention in discussion on a resolution to

establish an International stnke fund. Delegate Hyde from local 1-217 drew attention to the 5

experience of the recent British Columbia strike, where a Fighting Fund, as opposed to a P

stnke fund, had been established, to be used in whatever way the District Executive saw-as

m a t appropriate in fighting for the issues at stake. The records showed, complained

Hyde, that the biggest percentage of the fund had been used for "propaganda, parades and

publicity," rather than actually keeping men'on the picket lines by looking after their

material needs. Dalskog rose to the bait. Though he supported the idea of a strike fund he

wanted delegates to be clear that no fund could have fed 37,000 Britlsh Columbia

woodworkers for 37 days in 1946. Workers would still have to go out and rally both

financial and moral support in the community: "That is the way you, win strikes, not by an

International Union pouring funds in to keep the strikers." In British Columbia, Dalskog +

explained, the union asked its membership for a day's pay to support the 1946 st%gle.

"We didn't ask for a strike fund. It wasn't in our Constitution and we didn't feel that i t

was advisable. We felt that i t was advisable to at that time put i t on the voluntary basis, to

create a fund that would carry on the struggle that we were entering into." Some of the

most militant struggles had been carried on, and the greatest gains won, Dalskog reminded

his union brothers "when the union had nothing to start out on but the militancy of its -

w o r k e r ~ . ' ~ 2 9

The dichotomy between Fighting Fund and strike fund symbolized well the basic

dichotomy that would eventually split the union in two. District One had come to maturity -

within the increasingly institutionalized world of industrial relations. That world called for 1

a. business-like approach to collective bargaining, including the raising of money to support

a strike. The woodworkers' voluntarist tradition, building support around specific issues,

seeking a day's pay from members as an expression of militant support, clashed with the

bureaucratic approach inherent in a regularized monthly smke fund assessment deducted 9

. automatically by the employer from each pay cheque as part of union dues. That was the

approach that was favoured by such white bloc adherents as Mitchell, Alsbury and

Whalen.130 But there was more to their position than just plain politics. These men more

fully embraced a philosophy of business unionism which they saw as the logical outcome

of the IWA's march to union recognition and industry-wide collective bargaining. They

correctly understood the essence of the industrial relations system in which the union was

so thoroughly enmeshed. For the Distriet leaders, however, the 1946 strike was not the

harbinger of business unionism, but rather the launching pad for a continued assault on the

constraints of the legalism inherent in that system. The events of 1946 ought to have been

a clear warning that the IWA was balancing precariously between two different worlds, and

cou Id easily be broken asunder. Bjarnason's quixotic attempt to debate the reconstruction P

of Canadian capitalism in the context of an Industrial Disputes Inqpiry Commission, was

on1 y Aatched by the somewhat pathetic attempt of the old-line party stalwarts to rekindle

the glory days of the on-to-Ottawa trek, during the dying days of a smke that had already

been undermined by the deft manoeuvrings of Chief Justice Sloan and industry labour -

relations expert, R.V. Stuart. By June 1946, far from being the spearhead of the Canadian

labour movement, District One was rudderless and floundering in the turbulent seas of a

new post-war political formation. -As m-itchett remarked in his post-strike analysis, one of

,the weaknesses of "this great strike" had been the union's "under-estimation of the role of

monopoly capital in the post-war period."131 Only the fortuitous intervention of the fe&ral

government saved District One from humiliation. Yet in 194'1-48 the IWA would continue

to push at the limits of conventional industrial relations, while pvinc ia l employers and the - I. state moved to restrict the legal parameters within which trade unions could move about

freely. A collision between the IWA a d this state-employer initiative would play a large

part in the 1948 departure of the uqps. leadenhip.

-

&mer Eight

1947: Restructuring the Industrial Relationship\ \

The struggle over the nature and li&s - of the British Columbia industrial relations t

process and structure during 1946-48, in which District One was a key player, was part of

a broader struggle that absorbed much of the North American labour movement in this

period. That fight, while linked to the changing global political-economic realities of the

cold war period, had a more particu1.u nlaterial basis in the economics of industrial

production during the war and post-war years. Before going on to look in some detail at

the struggle over the induzmal relations system in the forest industry, we shall review some

of the economic factors and forces which framed that struggle, particularly from the point

of view of the employers.

In his book, The Right to Man-, Howell J. Hams outlines lucidly th% linkage

between the ideology of anti-communism, which shook American society to its roots, and

the problems of management at the level of the firm. He documents a "gut feeling" .

amongst America's industrial management that the rate of productivity- had fallen

dramatically during the war period because of labour shortages, a loss of hght managerial

discipline and relaxation of normal business efficiency. Low productivity might not have

posed an immediate crisis guring the profitable consumer boom of the early reconversion

The perception was common, however, that boom would quickly be followed by . -

depression, and then "success in the restoration of productivity and cost control might

make the difference between survival and bankr~ptcy."~ On a higher, politicaleconomic

plane, American businessmen who were determinedly in the process of dismantling the

New Deal, saw in a renewal of unfettered*capitalist enterprise, the only hope of restoring

Americans' faith in the economic system and warding off the socialism and communism

that were rapidly engulfing Europe and even Great Britain. Capitalizing on Republican

successes in the 1946 congressional elections in order to "win back territory it had lost to

workers and then unions during the war" the American business community moved quickly

for reform of labour relations law and to have Congress "implement its conservative

economic strategy.'"

The fears and perceptions of American capitalists were very much alive in the minds

of C a n d a n businessmen as well. Particularly in British Columbia, perceptions of falling

rates of productivity were linked with the success of communist-led trade unions. Of

course the anti-communist campaign that characterized these years was fuelled by the

broader perception of a Soviet threat to free enterprise and democracy, but it was rooted in

the material conltions of the British Columbii economy.

During the war, with full employment, workers took the opportunity to drive wages .

up as much as a regulated economy would allow, while employers claimed the quality of

the labour supply was deteri~rating.~ Following the war, the trend of full employment, a

scarcity of woods labour and declining output ~ont inued .~ The industry claimed .that while

in 1945 it took 20.4 n;lan-hours to produce 1000 board feet of lumber, in 1948 it took 22.7

man-hours-an increase of 11 percent.5 The union, as well, documented an increase-in

labour costs of over 27 percent between 1945 and 1947, but argued that the increase in

lumber prices ranged between 81 and 95 percent during the same period.6 An independent

study carried out in 1959 supports these trends most notably in logging. While the woods ,,

workforce on the coast expanded spectacularly between 1946 and 1947, approximately -

from 7000 to 14,000, physical output per man year, using 1949 as the base (loo), fed

from 133.1 to 86.2, and then further to 81.6 in 1948.7 In the milling sector, where most

of the new technical improvements, integration and fuller utilization of raw material was

being applied, productivity d d increase slightly. Using 1949 as a base (100). Deutsch a

d. found average annual employment increased From a 1946 level of 77.4 to 95.5 in 1947,

and then to 108.3 in 1948. The average physical output per man-hour ;ose from 85.9 to

92.5 in 1947 and then stalled at 92.6 in 1948.* In the ,all-important logging sector,

moreover, where production costs were more difficult to drive down, labour income, as a

percentage of gross value of output, dropped slightly during 1946-47 but rose by over

eight percent during 1947-49.9 The industry was concerned that when the depression hit . - , .

and prices fell, it would be stuck with high fixed costs that would eatinto profits. The

union's political argument claimed that only by increasing wages could the inevitable

depression be kept at bay.1•‹ . a

Concerns about the future stabiliry of the industry conditioned operators' P

perceptions on unionism &d producrivity. - Further, as with workers, ca~itali i ts were.

experiencing the pent-up frustrations of wartime regulation and state intepventionism, On , ..

top of the problems with taxation and timber depletion, they also were hit by the reduced

44-hour work week and the application of the federal unemployment insurance programme .

to both logging and milling sectors as of 1 August 1946. 'In 1948 came sharp increases in

freight rates.ll Lumbermen wanted to unfetter themselves from state aqd social incursions

into their enterprises, at the same time that they looked to the state to harness the power of

unions, and provide greater stability to their industry through reform of the forestry laws.

There is some debate regarding the relationship of the province's big lumber operators with

. the state over the issue of forestry reform,12 an argument that cannot be dsplved here. In -

an industry that, at least since 1912, had been regulated and promoted by an active state, it

was consistent with past practice that any broad policy initiatives toward ensuring future '1 .c

stability and expansion would come from the state bureaucracy, without too much protest

from the corporate giants.13 In the face of escalating social and labour costs, declining or

stagnating productivity, depletion of the rrfost accessible timber and the beckoning

opportunities i n the post-war world for further integration, concentration and expansion of

the industry, both labour and forestry reform were on the agenda. It is no mere

coincidence that 1947 witnessed the passage of significant legdative reform in both these

That is not, of course, to say that the industry played a passive role with respect to

state initiatives. It played an active part both during and after the Sloan Forestry .

Commission prckeedings, and prior to the passage of the new ICA Act, to ensure that stafe

policies were designed to meet its needs. Moreover, lumbermen, outside the area of

government policy, actively pursued measures to rationalize and integrate production to

meet the challenge of increased operating costs. The ihmediate post-war yeats witnessed

continued development of power saw and other automated technology.14 Typical of the

. . kind of initiatives announced on .the pages of the Pntrsh Columbia Lil- in these

years was one from Robert McNair Shingle Company of Port Moody that "faced with ever- . .

increasing labour costs and declining productivity of theindividual on onh hand, and the d

certainty that a re& to a competitive era is closely'approaching on thd dther," the company. - I

had-just completed thesinstallation of a new "all-electric" mill which promised to reduce the

a cost of lumber through a 75-percent reduction on laboir required over .

conventional mills.15 At the behest ofthe industry,.the British Columbia Industrial and

Scientific Research Council established during the war to aid in the development of war

industry, conducted a survey of more than 30 mills during the summer of 1947. The

Research Council compiled statistics on machinery breakdowns and man-hbur time losses

as a first step in a programme aimed at cutting lumber production costs. Expanded qtudies

were planned for 1948 which would include the shingle sector and. a &idy of mill " .

production methods.16

In addition to these new initiatives with respect to production techniques, new

experihents in utilization or salvagmg of what had previously been considered waste wood

in both log and mill sectors gpt underway during and immediately after the war. High log

prices suddenly made economical the salvaging or relogging of smaller, less desirable

timber left on logged-over lands formerly returned to the government. CWL's Comox

Logging and Railway Company at Ladysmith pioneered'in perfecting log salvage

techniques in a joint experiment with Powell .River Pulp and Paper and the provincial ,:

industry with a new operation at Duncan Bay. (In fact, it was a combination of salvaged

material k i th new timber grants which would form the, basis of many new , F a n '

1 .

Management Licences for pulp production on the coast.) R.J. Filberg, ever at the forefront. ' t

of new initiatives in the logging industry, became president of the new - 5

operation, the Canadian Western Timber Company Limited.17 On the milling side of.the a

industry, in the.interests of closer utilization, BSW added a presto-log operation to its \

Boundary Shingle mill, and Canadian Forest Products began the manufacture of bardWard i

fram waste generatea at its pacific Veneer plant.l8 MacMillan also installed a hardboard : . 0

mill, and in 1947 invested soma of its profits from the post-.war boom to build a pulp rnijl

near Nanaimo. Fifty percent of the new Harmac Mill's wood would be supplied from *

waste chips from MacMillan's saw and mills.19

I t is clear that the new push for automation, closer utilization and integration of .

operations went hand in hand with what the chief of the Vancouver Forest Products , L

'Laboratory called "a broad program for the maintenance of forest land at full productive

capacityu-in other words,' sustained ~ield.20 In fact, one forestry analyst claimed that it

was. the closer utilization of the forests, especially with respect to the use of smaller logs, .

C

which made it possible to put the forests oh a sustained yield basis by lowering the growth

cycle for usable timber from 100 to 60 years.21

The achievements of the industry with regard to forestry policy and methods looked -

after only part of t h e ledger. The whole post-war programme to reduce costs, increase

productivity, assure future timber supplies-in short, :to stabilize the industry for future

investment and expansibn, would not be complete until some modus vivendi had been a

arrived at with labo?u. The pulp and paper industry had achieved that goal with its mill

workers years earlier (see chapter four above). The big wild card remained the IWA,

which, along with Mine Mill, wasregarded as having a destabilizing effect not only on

-261-

industrial relations in the mines, metal shops and forests, but on the whole of industrial s

relatiuns in the province.

The link between the militant and so-called "illegal" strikes of 1946 in British +

Columbia, and the push from organized capital for labour law reform has been ably

documented by Paul K n ~ x . ~ ~ Specific employer proposals regarding supervised strike

votes, enforced votes on offers during a strike and tke legal accountability of union h

members reflected the broad thrust of post-war North American labour law reform. They

also reflected the particular concern of British Columbia employers to contain if not to

eliminate altogether the growing power of left wing unionism in the province's key

industries. What has nor been so clearly documented in the British~Columbia case is the

material basis of this anti-communist drive. Behind the calls of such anti-communist fronts

as the British Columbia Federation of Trade and Industry that "the time has come to write

into the law of Canada the responsibilities of the leaders of our labour unions," was an *

.-? urgkht concern that militant industrial unions were responsible for the decline of labour

produ&ivity through such factors as an erosion of the differential between skilled and

unshlled workers, and reduction in the pride of the workers i n their work-which were f

only reinforced by gains made by unions during the war.23

First, there was the obvious problem of loss of production due to smkes. As H.A.

Renwick, Managing Director of B.C. Manufacturing Company, and Chairman of the

- British Columbia Division of the CMA told the 30th Annual Meeting in April 1947, had the

m e will of the majority been heard, these destructive strikes in the lumber, mining and >

enpeering industries would not have occurred. It was in line with this belief that the

CMA, in cooperation with other business associations, "made submissions recently t o the

Provincial Government as to the desirability of providing by legislation for the taking of a

pre-smke Government-supervised vote before a strike is called in any industry," and then

only after all the processes of conciliation and arbitratitqn had been exhausted.24 But the

question of labour productivity went far deeper than just the curtailment of disruptive

strikes. On the and forest industry association agendas in ~ r i i s h Columbia was th& -

question of rooting out the communists and replacing them with responsible business- - . %

P minded trade unionists. The first step 'in that direction was reform of the, industrial pelations . .s.

1 - system so as to undermine the ability bf ieaders to rally their members quick1yfor;hmely

t ' '

preemptive strike votes, and effective strike action which would drive up wage rates. The c

second step was implementatigr$bf heavy penalties if not outright decertification if union - '

leaders tried to circumvent a whole series of legal &d procedural hurdles in the interests of ' r - ,

protecting the bargaining power of their members, Clmer?? leaders would either bebrought r . 3 % b * . -

wirhin the'framework of responsible business unionism or discredited in the eyes'of-their . *

ranksand-file 'as disregardful 6f the will of the democratic majority and as illegitimate B i "

connaveners of. the statutes governing collective bargaining.

To address this general problem of bringing labour into line in the interesis of 4 5

b

% L increased p roduc t~~ i ty, the CMP., a: iis June 1947 Annual General ~eet ing, ' .held a

4 . . comprehensive session entitled "Labour re la ti or?^ a d Prductibn." Partic~lar~attentioh

4

@B'

fqcussed on the l&plation r ~ l y - p a s s e d in Nova Scotia, Alberta and British Columbia, ' - & .

and the pending federal legislation to ~eplace PC 1003, der the Chairmanship of R.O. Y

dampney, Chair of the Ifidustrial Relations Committee of the British Columbia Division, - . . " t

fu l l expression was pven tothe problem of communism in the trade unions, and its effect * .

6

on production. Among the most outspoken were some uhidentified British

Collimbia members, one of whom asserted that "there can be no question that' labour

legislation and productivity are interlocked." Several statutes' passed in recent years

affecting output reflected the more and more militant demands af labour leaders, bui not the

demands of the average worker. The leaders, he noted, often misrepresented to the i&-

and-file the real position of the industry, even in the face of audited company reports. The

impact of unionization had been to "bring down to the level of the lower the hetter man in

the plant." The union, of course, has tried to establish a wage rate on the status of the best

man in the plgce." He advocated p on a piece-work basis as one way to bre

the hold of the union.25 - Another British Columbia member s new ICA Act as rightiug the balance that \

cr >P

had for years been tipped in favour of labour as a result of a Minister d<Laboui @earson)

who had favoured the union viewpoint. Added to that imbalbce was "the way the

Government taxes us and the position of the Canadian dollar and the American dollar and

-B the sterling area," so that "none of you gentlemen are free to do your business as you might

like to do it." Though "a howl went up from our friends, the Communist-leaders" over the

supervised secret ballot, he saw the new provisions as helping to restore "a free economy."

A third Britis$ Columbia member struck the note of the new fat$ of liberalism in the

province: ''recognizing t!at ihe unions are here to stay, we therefare want to make-our

unions strong, and comprising men whom we believe to be honest ... We are going out

progressively to clean the house from within,because we have faith in our individual

workers." That transformation of the communist-controlled unions would lay the basis for

"two moves that probably everyone had in mind to keep labow costs down to within

reasonable distance of thezoid normal"--mechanizatiofi and speed-up on the one hand, and

tighter supervisory practices on the other. As well, he commented on the current trend of

using contrattors to reduce costs, particularly in the areas of maintenance and construction.

Clearly a good working relationship with a compliant, business-minded union, would

facilitate these changes.26

Any doubt that communism and the future health of industry were linked together as

key business concerns in 1947-48 is easily dispelled by a brief look at the proceedings of

the 5th Annual Truck Loggers' Convention held in Vancouver in January 1948, to which

1000 delegates from throughout British Columbia as well as the northwest United States

flocked to discuss two key t o p i c s ~ o m m u n i s m , and the 'new provincial forest

management plan. With respect to the pernicious affect of communism on trade unionism,

the alarm was sounded by v(..lous speakers, including the outspoken Walter Owen who

called for direct legislative action to root out the red evil. The most interesting and - . - $

. thoughtful analysis, however, came from an American public relations'counsel wi P--1 Weyerhaeuser ~ i m b e r ~ ~ o r n ~ a n ~ of Tacoma, Col. Walter DeLong, whose a d d r e h , # t i t l Q

--- , . "Let's Raise the Iron Caurtain Between ~ m ~ l o ~ e r . ~ d - Employee," was reprint,i~ full in

4

the British Columbia Lumberman. While adjwing%nanage~ /'

'-----' story in order to educate labour in the free enterpnse system, he observed@at conmiunist

labour leaders had dropped an iron curtain between employees and-m&agement, ,

preventing the free intercourse which would allow management to expose "the false

doctrines" and explain the economic realities. "The greatest long-term threat to our polkical E

and economic system," lectured DeLong, "is the worker's opposition to increased

efficiency and to profits." Through employee forums, small group meetings with /

-+k supervisory personnel, and key employees, the leaders of thought from various

t

' departments 6f the company (usually married men with families and homes and some

seniority), greater 'hderstanding would be engendered about how the sales dollar was ?

divided, the relation of wages, prices and profits, how competition controlled profits, how - production regulates prices, wages and dividends and so on. By lifting the iron curtain

, . between employee and employer, industrial peace would re,ign. North America's true

e~onomic potential could easily be realized, according to the Weyerhaeuser spokesman, if

.only "we do not high-jack each other or fall for this hocus-gems economic philosophy that 0

the communist agitators spread, that the c o u n q owes us a living whether we work fod t or

During these tumultuous years, 1947-48, the pages of Industrial Canada, Western

B i 1 s -in ess and Industry, British Columbia Lumberman and other business journals were full

of in-depth analysis of productivity problems, labour relations and the impact of provincial,

federal and United States' statutes on the power of unions. The ultimate industrial relations

.goal of the CMA, the Truck Loggers' Association, the BCLA and other associations of

organized capitalists was no longer to eradicate trade unionism, but to help bring about a

business-minded cadre of trade union leaders sympathetic to their cwcerns ofreducing

costs, meeting new post-war opportunities, while at the same time planning conservatively

for the inevitable downturn. To such trade unions would go the full rewards of,union - -&

security and legitimation, along with full responsibility before the law---an outcoine clearly

pointed to in 1945 by the Rand Formula, the original blueprint for conservative, post-war

.business unionism. The first step along that route in British Columbia, with the return of.

authority over indusmd relations to the provinces scheduled for the-spring of 1947, was to

bring the ICA Act into line with the new political and economic iealities governing post-wa

North America. With the institutional "leg-up" on the communists, the process of cleaning

house could proceed, aided and abetted b4 the anti-communist forces within the labour

bureaucracy itself. +.

. Disgruntlement amongst organized employer groups in the province over the J'

1

inroads made by organized labour with the provincial government had been.'growing since. -, . ,

1945. Prior to war's end, a BCFL-led lobby resulted in the creation of a government-

lagour committee which was to confer on legislative matters, both provincial and federal. ;,

Pearson specif;cally excluded CMA participation.28 *ile continued BCFL demands for a

new provincial libour code were deflected pending anticipated federal action, cooperation -

with the state paid off for the Federation and the TLC in 1946 when the government 1

responded to lobbying efforts with theenactment of the.44-houi week and a statutory one-

week paid vacation provision.29

' These concessions threw the CMA'~s top brass into

for its political expediency in turning a deaf ear to * .

Unfortunately for it, the CMA had no alternative paqy to

a rage against the government

its own lobbying efforts.30 ,'

which to,throw its support. I t

&d, however, grow increasingly cool toward the chief Liberal elements in the governmefit, ,

Hart and Pearson, and helped lay ,the groundwork for a shift to the right in the Coalition

structure after Hart's resignationjn 15)47.31 The position of the *-led employer groups - .

was buttressed quite quickly in this regard with the outbreak of labour unrest in the

province in the summer of 1946, the responsibility for which was easily placed at the

doorstep of the LPP-led unions. The CMA's new chief in British Columbia, H.A.

~ e & i c k , viewed the lumber and foundry strikes as part of a general communist plot

against North American ~apitaIism.~* When-Pearson spoke out strongly against the IWA's

action in undertaking an illegal strike, it was in part because it was a slap in his face and

helped to lower his political stock with organized capital. -

In factdn the wake of the 1946 strikes, the state was quickly becoming more

receptive to the demands of capital. In December 1946, a depamnenbl official 'had drafted

a memo for Pearson on the ICA Act, recommending such changes as excluding

supervisory or cohfidcntial employees, weakening the provisions f o r industry-wide J

bargaining, allowing for easier decertification prior to a first agreement, explicitly

prohibiting strikes during the term of an agreement, and providing for mandatory

supervised strike votes requiring two-thirds or three-quarters support of workers

involved prior to any smke action. Harmonious industrial relations, free from compulsion,

were to be maintained as a matter of principle, by continued exclusion from ihe law of any 1

form of union security. The new act was to be administered by a Labour Relations Board

constituted similarly to the federal wartime board.33

Many of these ideas had of course been received either directly or indirectly by the

state, during the preceding months, in the form of letters, formal presentations and

published diatribes from various employer groups and representatives. They were all

neatly summarized in a 24 February industry association blueprint for post-war labour

relations in the province. The brief, presented by 15 employer groups led by the British

Coluptna Division of the CMA, including eight forest industry associations, entailed 17

points. Chief amongst these, and most contentious, were the supervised prestrike vote

procedures of all employee+ affected by a dispute, a supervised vote on any new employer

., -267-

offer during the c m s e of a strike, mandatory certification m, the registration of unions -

as legal corporate entities subject to damage suits for contract violation, the filing of annual

- financial statements, "just as is done by industry," possible revocation of bargaining rights

for unions striking illegally, and the recognition of the individual's right to work by making

all forms of union security illegal. Employeis were to be given freedom to choose whether m

to bargain individually or as an industry. The new act was to be administered by a Board,

independent of the civil s e ~ v i c e . ~ 6

- r ~ r , In its preamble, the briif noted "it is obvious that everywhere in Canada and the

United States there exists today a public befief that.. .new union power has not been .

matched with union responsibility. The trend is therefore toward new legislative

safeguards to ensure that there will be democratic procedure within the trade union and that

. the public interest will be better protected .from those unions that may develop irresponsible

leadership."35 That North .-% American trend of which the industry brief spoke, had been

initiated well over a year before by a parallel American business organization to the CMA, P

the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM). P

In its 1946 decimation of principles on labour-management relations the NAM

included such fashionable devices as leg21 recognition of an employee's right not to join a

union, binding arbitration of all disputes, contractual no-strike provisions, atomized as . t

opposed to multi-employer bargaining, and a secret ballot vote supervised by an outside

6 agency on the employer's last offer. ' In addition, the NAM principles proposed facilitating

the questioning of union representativeness, and called forathe outlawing of any kind of

union security and of a whole range of union actions such as sympathy strikes and

British Columbia business thought on industrial relations was clearly part of a

general current of conservative North American business policy.

The November 1946 United States congressional elections, which swept our the

liberal Democrats in favour of a Congress dominated by conservative Republicans, only

expressed at the national level a broad anti-union sentiment that had swept through many

1

state legislatures in the wake of the post-war strike wave.37 This anti-union movement

would find its ultimate expression in the so-called "slave-labor law," the Taft-Hartley Act . - of June 1947. This Act embodied many of the NAM's 1946 principles, as well as the

infamous non-communist rule proposed by the hard-line NAM minority faction, barring

access to the NLRB by any union with communists as office holders.38 Similarly, in

British Columbia, much of the CMA labour relations agenda would be incorporated holus-

bolus into the Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Act, 1947, more commonly known at

the time as Bill 39. Some of its harshest proposals however, had to await the 1948 session

for implementation, after the Coalition had reahgned itself further to the right, and the threat

of labour retaliation had ded out.

Strictly speaking, it could be argued that Bill 39 grew quite naturally out of the

existing provincial and federal labour codes, and did not represent a real departure or break

from the long process of institutionalizing industrial relations begun actixely in the 1930s.

That indeed is the convincing argument applied by Christopher Tornlins in his analysis of

the reformof ;he wagner 'Act. Taft-Hartley was not a dramatic transformation or . overturning of Wagner, but only carried its pluralistic principles further towards clearly

- 8 .- I^_

delineating and limiting areas of legtimate tiade union activity. Taft-Hartley (and the same

argument applies to Canadian labour law reform) was not intended to disrupt collective

bargaining structures developed 'since the 1930s, ~ o m l i n states, but to ensure that unions

were confined ever more strictly within those structures: "Wages, hours and working

conditions were enthroned as legitimate o b j w of industrial government. Activities which

obstructed the funhlr development, expansion and productivity of the corporate political ,

economy, however, were to be avoided."39 - 2

- Indeed, as the IWA District One chief legal advisor wrote in his March 1947

analysis of Bill 39, the wording of the bill was only half the story. The other and vital half

was "the real situation in which the law makes its appearance, and the manner it is

=% administered." With wartime labour and economic controls rapidly coming to an end, and

. ,

with the "inevitable" post-war depression ever on the horizon, John' Stanton argued that big -

business was preparing the people for a new version of 'the "hungry thirties." Stanton - comluded:

Bill 39 expresses the big employers' own estimation of the labour situation in this province. While not yet able, because of labour's strength, to break openly with the unions, the big employers, through the Coalition government in Victoria, want its crippling provisions to put themselves in a strong position for union-busting in the immediate future.@

Bill 39, viewed in the context of intensified class struggle after V:E Day, and in

conjunction with similar employer-backed legislation in the United States, was a major

statement of a shift in the balance of political forces in North America. Its actual provisions

were less drwatic. The old Act's supervised secret ballot vote on an arbitration board

award, held at the &seretion of the minister, became a mandatory supenised strike vote of

- all employees affected prior to any stnke action. Most objectionable to the IWA in this

regard was less the principle of government supervision-Pritchett claimed government

supervision gave a vote more authority-but the notion that the law could override the J"

union's constitution which provided that only union members could vote on such matters

as contract approval and strikes.41 Such a provision contravened the cherished right of a

union to manage its own internal affairs, and undermined the legitimacy of a trade union's

role as sole bargaining authority for all employees covered by a collecrive agreement. .3 -

PC 1003 had provided fines for employers, employees and trade unions guilty of , -

t6, 3 1'

violating its provisions, particularly with respect to strikes and lockouts. Bill 39 took what

the labour movement had considered as enforcement pmvi"sions for a wartime emergency, . .

and instituted them as part of the peace-time industrial relations system, though the amounts

of possible fines were re~luced.~2 The employers' demands that unions benincorporated

and collective agreements be given the full legal status of other congacts were not included d

s .

" \

.in the 1947 bill, leaving the actual status of collec~tive agreements i n civil law as a matter of

legal dispte.43 Neither were calls for mandatory certification votes or a legal ban on union

security made part of the new law.44

Particularly galling to industrial trade unionists, in light of the'long struggle for *%

recognition, the new ICA Act (1947) provided separate definitions for bargaining agent (a

trade union) and bargaining authority (a bargaining agent other than a trade union). It thus

gave recognition and equal standing before the law to both trade unions and employee

associations, As Stanton claimed, "these two definitions taken together create a dualityof

employees' bargaining machinery which continues throughout the Bill, which is not

- q without its ~i~nificance."~5 Regardless of this significance, Bill 39 only made explicit, by

definition, the same duality or ambiguity with respect to employe9 bargaining

representatives which existed in both the previous provincid Act and PC 1003. In fact,

according to Stanton's analysis, -Bill 39, under its unfair labour practices section, provided

greater prqtection to unions against attempts at control or interference by employers than

did PC 1'003; and under its certification procedures it contained "stronger provisions than *

7r

have ever been contained in any earlier labour law, either Federal or Provincial, on the

subject of company unions." Moreover, the certidcation sections, according to Stanton,

clarified the status and rights of a certified bargaining authority "and will' eliminate

considerable ground for argument."' On the other hand, the separate organization of craft

workers i n industrial plants already under agreement was to be facilitated by removing

certain criteria for certification that had existed p r e v i o ~ s l y . ~

The sections of the new ICA Act (1947) governing conditions prior to strikes or

lockouts were delineated in more detail than in PC 1003, or in the old ICA Act.

Nevertheless, their effect with respect to "cooling-off' was much the same. The

prohibition against striking during the life of an agreement, while implicit in the old

provincial statute, was spelled out explicitly, as in the federal wartime regulations. The

ICA Act. (1947), however, extended the federal cooling-off procedure with the addidon of

the supervised strike vote which was intended to follow the award of a conciliation board.

L

Particularly in the case of industry-wide bargaining, as in the forest industry, the time

required to take such a vote, given the inadequacy of existing machinery, could be

lengthened considerably. The ICA Act (1947). as did PC 1003, provided for o Labour

Relations Board to administer the Act with broad discretionary powers which could in

theory be used to undermine trade union power. The labour movement felt there should . have been at least some gmrmtee of a union nominee on the board, as wasshe practice .

with the federal board.47

As is evident from this brief analysis, the ICA Act (1947) in many respects

formalized and delineated labour relations practices that had developed concomitantly with

the widespread recognition of industrial trade unions in Canada during the war. That

process of formalizing a labour code tended to give uniqns more protection against the

worst forms of anti-union activity from a bygone era, and re-established in provincial law

the basic principles of union recognition and collective bargaining won during the war. At

the same time, it also reintroduced into a peace-time atmosphere the tight legal parameters

enforcing the terms and conditions of the collective bargaining process that were part of the *

wartime order. As well, as Stanton observed, it laid the legal foundation that in future

would facilitate the emergence of opposition blocs and craft challenges within the industrial

union structure. By specifically rejecting union demands for an extension of union security

in law, while at the same time taking the power of decision over the use and timing of

labour's most important weapon-the strike--out of the hands of both a union's leaders

and its general membership, the Act offered both a rebuke and a challenge to the authority 4

of unions such as the IWA to continue to act as legitimate bargaining agents in the new \

post-war political and industrial reality.

But just as the organized employers and the state in ~ r i tish'~o1urnbia were moving

to formalize and delineate the parameters of industrial, and ultimately class relations in the -

province in the aftermath of the 1946 Strikes, District o n e was embarking on a strategy of

challenpg and broadening the limits of Conventional. colkctiv& bariainiig behaviour. 3 - .,

From the union's viewpoint, several issues which were never properly addressed in

the master negotiations remained outstandir~g, after the 1946 settlement, such as special

category wage adjustments for shingle sawyers and packers, trainmen and mill engineers.

In addition, several categories of employees remained excluded from the protection of the

hours of work clause, most notably cook and bunkhouse employees. Such important

demands as union security and an industry-wide health and welfare plan still ranked high

on the negotiation agenda. The major unfinished piece of business left over after the return - to work in June 1946, however, had been the 40-hour week. The union was determined to A . build on its 1946 achievement and institute the 40-hour week (won for loggers during the

winter months) across the industry and throughout the entire duration of the contract. To . . . achieve this goal, the District, along with the logging locals, adopted a tactic of aggressive

interpretation of the agreement, back& up 3y on-the-job action of rank-and-file loggers.

~ u r i n g • ‹ the summer of 1946, both union and employers tested the meaning and

intent of the hours of work clause. The unions sought to limit hours, the employers were

concerned to find ways around the implementation of 40 hours in logging scheduled to

begin on 1 October. There was no issue which impinged so directly on the productivity of

an operator's labour force did either statutory or contractual curtailment of hours putside

the sphere of managerial discretion. The 1946 agreetpent set no parameters on the working

week. In August, the union. raised at the Joint lndustry Committee, the issue of whether

employees working S,aturday,afternoon would be paid time-and-one-half regardless of

hours worked during the week. The matter was referred to Sloan who interpreted that only

if time worked on Saturda:~ afternoon exceeded 44 hours for th'e week would overtime be C

paid.48 That interpretation made it evident to the union that it would have to fight both i

prior to and during negotiations for a strict five-day work week as a basis for enforcement

of the 40 hours. A second blow to the union position came with Sloan's ruling that fallers

and buckers paid on a piece-rate basis &d not come under the provisions ofthe hours-of-

. .

work ~lause .~9 That ruling suddenly linked together the struggles for 40 hours and against -

piece work. .1

Union strategy was formalized at the first District Council meeting after the switch

ax4 to 40 hours, held on 13 October. Pritchett n the weakness in the contract with the lack

of a clearly defined work week. Mark Mosher from local 1-85 fingered "transient" loggers

as the ones &Q were interest-ed in making fast money by working more overtime: Given , .

the general situation in the logging workforce, that designation clearly could cover a large

segment of workers. To remedy the situation, the Council adopted a working rule of no

Saturday work in logging, and no Saturday afternoon work in the mills unless overtime

wages were paid.50

S t y t had already complained to Pritchett that "groups bf men in a number of our

logging camps" were refusing to work Saturdays regardless of accumulated hour~.~, l The

situation in the camps, and the Dismct Council's adoption of its "working rule," led to

meetings between Stuart Research and the union on 18-19 October. Many operators were

anxious to regain production lost during the strike, and to stockpile lags in the e.vent of a

severe winter. The BCLA had been pushing for a ruling from both the union and the

Board of Lndusmal Relations on the right to continue operating 48 hours (with overtime $3.

paid) in camps where employees were willing.52 S.G. Smith, manager of BSW logging

operations, had told an Association meeting that his men would not stay i'n the-woods in

any case on a 40-hour basis, and wanted the Bead of Industrial Relations to rule o n

whether it would permit operators to exceed the statutory 44-hour average over the course

of the" year.53 Under pressure from the BCLA, Stuart drafted a form letter from companies

to employees raising the possibility of winter closures. A number of employees, the letter

explained, had approached management with a request to apply for permission to work 48

hours. The company was willing to comply with the request provid4 its action was

endorsed by a majority, and had union approval.54 In fact, as Stuart admitted to his

clientele on 7 October, in only five camps with 400 men had a clear majority already asked

for 48 hours, though in others the matter was still under discussion amongst the

w0rkers.5~

It was in this contexi, with pressure coming from thenemployers to undermine the

40-hour principle with the lure of extra wages, that the union tightened its stand in order to

counteract a possible trend.; At the mid-October rpeeting with Stuart, the District

representatives adamantly opposed any proposal to work 48 hours on €he grouids of extra

remuneration where men preferred to work an extra eight hours on Saturday rather than

stay in camp idle. Union officials were sympathetic to applicqtions for 48 hours where on

account of emergencies or circumstances beyond the operators control, average production

fell below normal for a 40-hour week. They also would consider the matter of straight-

time Saturday work(where such work did not exceed 40 hoqs) to make up for individual

' employee time lost due to similar causes.56 But when seven applications were immediately

fired off to the Board for consideration, the union had second thoughts. At the hearings

before the Board, union officials withdrew their recent undertaking to Stuart and expressed

frank opposition to any hours in excess of 40, and to any Saturday work in camps or

Saturday afternoon work in the mills without overtime pay.57

I t had become clear to District leaders that with the ope&ors pushing for longer

iours. and with groups of so-called transient loggers in many camps arixious to eafn what "

they could, quickly before moving on or retuming to town for a binge, that no clear

distinction could be enforced between overtime work for reasons of extra remuneration

only, and "legitimate" overtime due to lost production, or the anticipation of it. According -.

to an industry survey conducted in 1948, of an estimated total of 12,000 coast loggers,

only 3 100 lived away from camp, and 1300 lived in company houses. These 4400 mostly -4

family men would have been the staunchest supporters of a strict 40-hour week. The

remaining 7600 lived in camp, and paid bqard and lodging charges. Unless they left camp

for the weekend, they would incur charges of $1.50 a day just to sit idle. Even if they left,

they were still charged for lodging while away. The costs of travelling to and from camp,

in addition to the cost 'of meals and lodging while away (on top of'the assessed camp

lodging charges) would have been an incentive for these workers to take whatever weekend- -

work was available.58 The union qould not stop workers'fi-om wanting to.earn overtime -

- - &ages, but if it wanted to win a contractual 40-hour week, it had to hold its members in

check, at least temporarily.

The union's difficult position with respect to its members, and the tactics it was

forced to take, were clearly outlined in a confidential letter from Ernie Dalskog to S.

Pederson, the chairman of the camp committee at M & M Lagging Company at Forward

Bay. The previous chairman, a man named Watts who worked as a flunkey in the

cookhouse, had tried to enforce the union position. R.V. Stuart had informed Dalskog on

behalf of the company that trouble was brewing in camp because Watts had refused to let P

the crew work on Saturday unless they were paid time and one-half. Watts then got into a

dspute with the bull cook who refused to continue to-work with him. The crew voted

unanimously that Watts should leave the cookhouse, apparently reflecting both a concern

with their diet as well as with his position on the work week. Watts refused to take .

employment elsewhere in camp and was fired. Dalskog claimed in his letter to Pederson

that Watts had been fired over the 40-hour issue. Though Pederson did not completely

concur with this version of events, it is clear that Watts' position amongst the crew had

been weakened through his enforcement of Dismct policy. Watts had upheld the union

position, Dalskog wrote, "that we will not make up any lost time during the week by

working Saturdays; that the work week starts Monday morning and should run

consecutively and end on Friday night.. ." Dalskog, who admitted he did not care too much

for Watts personally, then explained to the camp chairman the thinking behind the union's

position, and the need to defend Watts:

. . .while we were not able to get it as clear cut as we wanted it, nqvertheless, we established the principlk of the 40 hour week through our strike action. We know that we are going to have an argument with the Employers this Spring when negotiations open up.. .Therefore, we have to fight to establish a remlar scheduled work week and s t o ~ all overtime work because working

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more than 40 hours a week, even if it is paid at the rate of time and one- " ) B

half, weakensour argument for the shorter week59

Not only did the District have the difficult a s k of selling these tactics to a I ii

membership anxious to maximize its time in the woods and not too keen on weekend .

leisure, it also had to come up with a legitimate de nce of its position with respect to the

terms of the collective agreement. Disregarding the clear intent behind Sloan's

recommended terms for settling the hours of work matter in the 1946 negotiations, the

District, in its effort to expand the conventional of collective bargaining, .

adopted a very narrow, legalistic (though nonetheless aeativej reading of the agreement.

In 1945, the parties, at Sloan's suggestion, had adopted the phrase "shall not exceed" into

the hours of work language. The 194.6-47 contract, the union now claimed, only stated a

maximum that the regular hours of work should not exceed. It did ilot compel employees

to work 40 (or 44) hours, but only compelled the employer not to exceed that limit.

Therefore; employees were not bound to work Saturdziys in order to bring their week's

total to 40 (or 44).60 That interpetation' wouid become a major bone of contention as

spring approached and negotiations grew nearer. d

c5

, The hours-of-work clause in the 1946 master agreement divided the ;ear into two

parts. In logging the 40-hour week applied from October through March; the 48-hour

week during the busier season from April through September. ' The term of agreement ran A

*" * \

from 20 June 1945 to 20 June 1947. The union was faced with the prospect of the return

to 48 hours in logging on 1 April, just as it began its new set of negotiations. Yet its . strategy called for enforcing 40 hours dn the job as a key to winning it at the negotiating

table. b%ar had been a minor slarmish over Saturday work after 1 October, would become

a major battle after the return to 48 hours on 1 Apnl. - ,

To gear up for that $attle, logging locals such as 1-80 in the Duncan area

circularized members on the "shall not exceed" interpretation now to be applied to the 48-

hout schedule. Since the 40-hour week was one of the most important and popular T

demands "there would be no better way of assuring ourselves victory in'this'demand @an C L '

,' & by demonstrating our solidarity of purpose R I G T NOW." But, in fact, solidarity on the

issue, as already demonstrated, was distinctly lacking in the camps. To try to overcome

existing divisions, the local sounded the principles of worker and family well-being:

The popularity of the 4 @ h m week makes it definitely here to stay, not only among the married workers to whom it brings more deserved leisure in family life, but also among the "short stake" travellers who, if they don't "go down" for a weekend, are taking action to see that better recreation is deve1ope.d a1 the scene of the operation itself. All of which is to the benefit of all concerned for it is action that wouid likely have gone neglected for years t e - m e were the nee$ for proper recreation not so forcibly brought horn; by b e @smd fact Qe lengthened weekend in camp.61

It would not be any easy matter-td hold the majority of loggers to the shorter week . - 'IJ% - e

once 48 hours became normal again, p a n i c ~ i i Q when logging operations were by-and- i

large not set up for extended weekend leisure; Clearly union leaders realized that the

institutionalizing *of the shorter week, in practice, would have to take place over a

prolonged period. What was needed in the spring of 1947 was short-term job action, QJ

masse, even if rriany workers saw in the winning of 40 hours only the opportunity for

increased earnings through more ove&e after a new contract was signed. After attaining

that goal, the muchbmore difficult struggle could be undertaken to convince both &ion ,"

members and-employers of the need for a real shortened week for reasons of social and \ $f

cultural betteigxnt of workers' lives. The executive of 1-80, in March 1947, noted support , ,;

for its position from workers at Rounds, Meade Creek, Youbou and Ladysmith, and called

for every sub-local and camp to endorse the local's position.62 . x

The union, at this point, had the industry running around in circles. Legal*counsel

. to Stuart Research advised Stuart on 14 March 1947 that according to his careful % ,

examination of h c l e IX, there was "nothing jn the contract which in any way obliged the 0

Union to work 48 hours." The only recourse left to the operators, if the union chose to

work only 40 hours, was to "vigorously oppose paying any overtime unless the men had

actually worked 44 hours per week." ' To pay overtime after 40 hours during April to ,,.

- ,

September would, in his opinion, "be fatal." Heffernan predicted that 'if the matter were

submitted to ~ G a n for interpretation, "I cannot see how$ could give an interpretation

- - which would be favomble to the operator^."^^

Stuart apparently had more faith in his friend Sloan haridid Meffernan. The same I

day he received Heffeman's memo, Stuart wrote Sloan quoting sections from the Chief 1 . - "

S * .3

lustice'? 1 June 1x946 recommendations for settlement where he gave his reasons with '

- 0 i

4 (L I T- r e s a c t to the .urgent nied of production for his' hours of work comp&rhise. ~ t u k t a,

B reminded Sloan it was clearly the union's intentio &en it signed the 1946 agreement to

t! ~3: work 48 hours from April to September. Indeed, uart might have noted mere had been

.a

no immediate dispute during July through ~ e ~ t e m b e r 1946. Now, he informed Sloan, the

District intended to instruct the locals to work only 40 hours. Was this a breach of the

. . contract?

On 19 March, a more formal request for an opinion was-apparently forwarded to a

Sloan jointly by Stuart an8Dalskog after a uni'on-management meeting. Sloan's quick

response supported the operators' contention that it was a definite term of the agreement

that hours of work should average 44 per week in logging over the working year. From 1

April to 20 June 1947,48 hours applied, with time and one-half after 44 hours.@

Forgetting his self-criticism following the 1946 smke, and continuing his vendetta

against Sloan, in a meqing with Stuart Research following Sloan's interpretation, Pritchett

deqlared his refusal to read Sloan's remarks.65 Glossing over the fact tpar Dalskog had *' x' "9 % & ' .j d w

d v

been party to the request for the interpretation, Pritchett tbld the ~ i i t r i c t Wages and -

~omac;'~onference at the end of March that the application to Sloan had been illegal since

the contract did not provide for such a procedure. Moreover, Sloan, the man specified as

chairman for all arbitrations under the collective agreement, had, by virtue of his

interference, ruled himsel~ineligible.66

With negotiations due to open in a month's time, the union viewed the 40-hour

issue as crucial in establishing a position of strength i n bargaining. Prevented by law and

@

- . d

by public opinion from%&ng a "legitimate" strike vote prior to the start of-negotiations,

as in 1946, the District muId use rank-and-file support for its 40:hour campaign as a_,

subs:titute of so& At the Wages and Contract-Conference, 94 local delegates rallied J

behind the sfogan "40 dollars for 40 hours;:' callhg for a 20cent increase across the b a r d ,

an industry-wide 40-Wour week with no exceptions, an indug financed health -md % .%-I- welfa& plan, and lastly the union shop. Pritchett urged all local business agenrs and

secretaries to sign a'supplement to the collective agreement stating 40 hours would be *.

worked henceforth pending the outcome of negotiation^.^^

The first Saturday after 31 March was 5 April;.the same ciai the arbitration board

heanngs on the 40-hour week were scheduled to begin.. At {he $quest of Sloan, Judge e

H.I. Bird acted as chair in this case, with Harvey Murphy =representing the union and , \

eh - P * Alfred Bull the employers.68 That Saturday, thousands of loggers we&, reported off the.

I I

job on the Island and up the coast. Port Albemi, Courtenay and Duncan all-reported heavy

compliance wiih the union ban on Saturday work. The Vancouyer Sun reported the a

"holiday" was quite general." Union officials Dalskog and Pritchett quite deliberately *

failed to appear a t the hearings, while ~ u r ~ h ~ , too,, was e d e d out of town on other R"1

business. Stuart Research counsel, J.W: de B. Fanis accused the union of stalling and .R

~. d l ' > .

asked the board to proceed withwt.its represehtatiles. Bird granted an adjournment until 3

=- e

15 April, leaving the union at least one;and probably two more Saturdays to show its '

collective strength, at least in the important logging sector. On Friday 11 April, the

Vancouver press predicted that most of the 13,000 coastal loggers would stay away again

on Sa t~ rday . ' ~ and the following week &en after the arbitration decision against the union,

Stu,ur estimated only between 4500 and 5000-back at work, while the mion claimed a total

shutdown. The Sun announced one-half of British Columbia's lgggers were on a .

"s$ntaneous holiday.'"

W i t h Harvey Murphy i n the minohty upholding the union interpretation of the d

conmct, the arbitration bard ruled that the intent of the 1946 settlement as expressed in the

mpartite agreement ending the strike, was for the union p work an average 44-hm week

'in logging. Bird agreed with Fanis that :regard must be had to the circurngances in .which

the contract was written ..."72 Thai was a sound principle of industrial relations that in

other circumstances might have been @ to benefit the v i m . Murphy, stuck to the

narrow view thpt the voted-upon imd signed master agreement made the tripartite agreement - i r r e l e ~ a n t . 7 ~ The majority report nozed that in the three months following the strike

rettlernent, . - . loggers had worked 48 hours with union approval. Even if 48 hours were only

a maximum, however, the management rights clause in Article XI1 vested full authority in

$p?operators to determine the number of hours to be.worked within the limits fixed.74 .i.

The &itor of the Lumber W o r k e ~ charged that in so applying Artide XI1 to the

hours of work issue, the majority of the board had "written in the provisions of Bill 39" by

removing from the colledtive bargaining process the determination of what the con&tions of

work shall be.75 More to the point,Bird had come to the rescue of the industry'by

upholding the principle of maagement's right to direct its workforce, of crucial importance

for an industry determined to reverse the trend toward reduced worker pioductivity. In .

protesting the majority award, the District Council claimed that output of lumber had

actually increased dwing the period that the 40-hour week had been in effect, thereby .

. proving the union's contention that the shorter work week both benefited workers and F1

' resulted in higher production. That was an argument the industry would never * I

~ h o u g h the decision had gone against it, the union too had made its point. In spite

of earlier divisions on the intent behind the shoner work week issue, rank-and-file support

for the 40-hour week had been clearly demonstrated. .i$ven after the decision had been -

accepted by the District Council under strong protest, various locals and sub-locals

continued to threaten on-the-job actions. ber-zealous local leaders such as ~ e l s h l a d s e n

of 1-71, J. Higgin of Courtenay 1-363 and union representatives in 1-80 continued to r instruct m e m k r s to refuse to work 48 hours on the last Saturday in April. Pritchett was

forced by Stuart to police the agreement by sending ktters to the offending leaders

instructing them to comply with the decision under protest Stuart, however, fought back,

trying to use the ultra-rmlitant stance of some union representatives to discredit the union as

negotiations got underway on 23 April. He publicly charged the IWA with "douple- , 0

dealing" on the basis of a telegram sent by John McCuish, Business Agent for the Queen

Chzrlotte Islands loggers, which congratulated the men on the :'militant stand wMch has

laid the basis of the 40 hours in the new contract," and urged continuation of the struggle t

for 40 hours. ~ritchett sprang to McCuish7s defence, noting that in view of the fact that'the

union was demanding 40 hours in its new contrack there was clearly no double-dealing.77 .

The employers continued to push for some advantage. In a statement on the 1947

negotiations, they asserted that failure of the union to enforce acceptance of the majority

award was proof of the need for specific provisions to ensure contract fulfillment. Before

they would consider details of amen ents for 1947, they proposed that each local of the % union be registered as a legal entity, accepting liability for damages in case of non-

fulfillment of contract provisions. IT that were not acceptable, as an alternative they would

accept from each local a bond i n the amount of $10 for each member which would be liable

for attachment for damages.'g With the union's demands now on the table, Stuart balked '

B

at responding until the loggers fell into line.79 When the loggers persisted in enf6rcing the - O

30-hour e l e on Saturday, 3 May at Salmon River, Cowichan and other Island point%

~ t u a r t called an indefinite halt to negotiations until $1 Saturday job action ceased. 'Pritchen

threatened a strike vote unless negotiations resumed the following Monday: In his - -- .

6 6 president's column in the Lumber Worker lie notedrbai r ~ ~ & & & & b & ~ ~ - -- < . <

union provisions contained in Bill 39 the employers go one step further by the inclusion of

the most glaring reactionary proposal ever emanating from any group of employers.. . *

The e 1937 round of-bargaining got underway in an atmosphere charged with the

recent passsge of the ICA Act (1947), calls for the legal incorporation of the wdworPrers - locals, and an impressive display of rank-and-file militancy in coastal logging camps, all of

which seemed to point toward the I W A as the first test case for the new ICA Act (1947).

-- t i '

- The 1946 IWA contract settlement had left, most of the union's major bargaining

issues unresolved. Union security, the 40-hour week, a substmtiah wage adjustment that

would allow workers to leap ahead of price inflation, a health and welfare plan, would all ., 0

becarried over onto the 1947 bkgaining agenda, as wouid a multiplicity of demarrds for

adjustment of sectoral inequities for piece-workers and'others who did not benefit fully

from the terms of tlie m&er agreement. The much-lauded industry-wide agreement in the I ' 94.

p -

interior had broken down in its implementation with the refusal of several operators to sign

it.' The 15-cent wage increase (10 cents in the interior) had rapidly been eaten up by $

f-living, reduced hours and higher taxation' (see chapter seven above). The ' "

R

k was k i n g erodedthrough the mutual desire of opefators and loggers to ,'

- make hay while the sun shone, so to speak. / /

Also carried over into 1947 was the mixed legacy of the 1946 strike. Certain

lessons were apparently learned with respect to the operation of a strike fund, voting

procedures and over-reliance on broader labbur movement support from outside the

province. On the other hand, 1946 had pfoduced a new confidence in the union that it had '

the strength and suppon to take the operators on in an industry-wide stmggle.2 And, at the

provincial and local levels, the uniqn had generated a considerable amount of labour unity

and support, its ill-fated trek to Victoria notwithstanding. The IWA'sgasition as "kingpin"

in the province's labour movement was enhanced, evenas its stature on the national stage

Gas put into proper perspective, by the events of 1946. Insofar as the woodworkers'

. strike had k e n the catalyst for the employer-state programme to*impose new limitations on

-trade union strength, District One ought to have been, and, apparently was prepared to pla? -

4 .

a leadership role in any ensuing province-wide confrontation with capital and the state.

I 'I

In session at their 1947 District convention, local delegates heard aired both the

short-comings demonstrated by the previous year's strike; and high expectations for the - union in 1947. Same interior delegates voiced dissatisfaction with their peripheral status

P I

during the strike, which only served to fuel existing grievances with respect to the& access

to District meetings and conventions. But delegates fpllowed the lead of Dismct officers iri - voting down a proposal that wbuld -have subsidized interior delegates attending union

e B

functions on the cos t . Pntchett rather callously advised them to get their men elected to the e

w

District board as the means of gettitig their concerns heard.3 conventioneers also heard a u

warning from delegate ~ a & n g o n speakmg o d b h a l f of all special categories 9

exempted from the overtime % provisions and other benefits of the contract-members who,

he suggested, represented "the weakest link" in the, chain of union solidarity and a r- .

"potential source of disruption" to be played on by the b o ~ s e s . ~ f i e y also heard haw . . f f

fallers, already outsi'de the provisions of the hours-of-work clause, were being induced to b . , -.

purchase their own power saws; the next step on-the road-to becoming full-fledged

con'rractors, completely outside of the parameters of the collective agreement.5 Dire

warnings came, as weI1, from the Vancouver sawmill local *I-217 that skilled bhingle

workers were becoming ripe' for raiding by the, AFL if tbe IWnA did not do something

quickly to reverse the'deterioration in their wages and conditions going on under the piece- % +

work S ~ S ~ T I . ~ On the matter of the work week, k t c h e u raised theissue of Saturday work *

at straight time and noted it was becoming "quite a problem" in the logging local,

particularly in view-of Chief Justice Sloan's 27 August interpretation of Article IX. 4

f +

Any attempts to resolve most of these problems would have to await the next round

of contract talks. The convention did act to address one serious problem exposed'by the S -

1916 strike, that of the Fighting Fund. By choosing to raise money through voluntary

contributions -to support the fight for specific con&ct issues, the union had quickly

accumulated $85,000 from'its membership', as well as $26,000 from other sources. But

9 the Fighting Fund had problems, not the least of which was a "lack of uniformity" in terms

of contributions. Some m e m M paid in a 'full diy 's wages, others less, some none at all.

In particular, in local 1-217, where there had been quite a fight for a "proper" strike fund as

opposed to a Fighting Fund, workers seemed to have held back more than in other locals.

It was the only coast lwal to have run a deficit, receiving back during the strike almost

$10,000 more than it had paid in.' On top of that came-the probl;A of disbuisement..=

While $80,000 went to locals to spend how they sawfit, $28,000 was uked by the District

. for other expenses associated with running the strike. Local leaders similarly used a ' ,t

portion of their funds to pay for publicity, travel and the like, leaving n6t nearly enough to 9

provide proper strike relief. Near the end of the 37-day strike, with resources rund,ing thin, .. C 4 I

elocals had been called on by the District to cash in their victory bonds to finance relief. '% While mdst locals wrote off the loss at the request of the District, the New Westminster

local, seat of h e british Columbia white bloc, would ST use the outstanding claim I

against the Fighting Fund in its campaign to discredit the District leaders8 More damaging

politically from the point of view of the District Executive was a sizeable discrepancy which

had been found by the auditor of local 1-357's accoqnts after the strike, for which local

executive members and District loyalists Percy Smith and Jack Lindsay were held

responsible.9 A certain carelessness seemed to have been pan'and parcel of the general

ethos surrounding the handling and use of union funds in District One. This attitude was

well expressed by Dalskog's rejoinder to critics of the Fighting Fund at the 1946

Lnternational bnvention: "These people that raise these issues had very little to say about i t

and be proud of, bxause the fund that wa-s collected in B.C. for the strike in 1946 the

major portion of it came from the loggers' Locals and they never raised any issue about

how it was used."1•‹ Better that they should have, Dalskog might later have added.

Nevertheless, by the time of the 1947 District convention, the executive had

recognized that "there appears to be a popular demand, and rightly so, for the establishment

of a district stnke fund to prevent, if possible, and to protect if need be, our membership on

8

- _ -285- *. *

strike."kl Similarly, the Wage and Contract Committee recommended a 25-cent per month a .

strike fund levy as "key to the achievement of our demands." But in view of the need for a

referendum on the issue, implementation would be delayed until April, making it necessary

to establish another-voluntary fund for the 1947 negotiations.12 The convention duly

passed the strike fund resolution and sent it to. District referendum as part of ,a general i

8' increase in dues of 50 &nts, the balance to help cover local and District administrative

costs. The passage of the dues increase referendum, how&er, would make it that muck P

more difficult to raise an adequate, strike fund for 1947 based on voluntary cpnaibutions,

on top of the additional monthly levy. The passage of the strike fund resolution was a

significant step towards bureaucratization in the woodworkers' -union, and seemed to - .

express the will of the more conservative sawmill locals as against the vision of militant

'trade uhionism still harboured by the Dalskog's and McCuish's of the loggers' local who

, were just then set to embark on their spring offensive for the 40-hour week: i t

Nineteen forty-seven would be very much a transitional year. While the union

seemed to be moving in a conse,rvative diretion with respect to its strike fund system, on

, the broader political fron€ there appiared to be no backing away from the new conservative . .

.I-

, ,. ?*

challeae cornrhg from , oiganized = capital and the state. In its report to the January Dismct *

convention, the Wages and Contract Committee iecornmended:~he District Council "leave . . no stone unturned in its efforts to develop a united national movergent, cbordinated through

the CCL National Wage Coordmating Committee" on which unidn Prksident &tcheit'now B e

sat as chahan.13 Speaking in favour of the proposed 25-percent wage increase, Pritchett r -

cast his vision eastward and argued that in considerhg the resolution this conventidn - ,,

"should give a lead to the entire nation because the entire nation will be watching within'the

next few days the National Wage ~ o o r d m a t i n ~ Conference-to be held h theCity of Ottawa

oh January 9th."14 In calling for an intensified political action campaign at the provincial

level, through the united efforts of the whole l a b u r movement, the Dismct 'officers urged

delegates that the " IWA will have to spearhead this campaign, as it spearheaded'the wage 1 I

campaign of the organized workers in 1946."l5 District One still regarded itself, quite . ,

correctly, Bs central to any broad coalition of popular forces that might tie mounted in i :"

British Columbia. It was hoped e a t , once mobiliz&$on the broader social anaabour . .

issues, these forces would support the union in its coming wage s'truggle. In January of

1947, on, tG?a,cific coast of Canada, that "long historic process" of whichDavid I '.

~ o n t ~ o m e ~ % ~ @ , "of>educing the American labour movement to a trade union

movement," had not'yet reached its concl~s ion?~ The ensuing two years would certainly

accelerate the completion of the process both in British Columbia and Canada. In this

drama, District oneof the IWA was a key player.

During January and February, IWA locals busied themselves electing political

action committees and attempting to carry out Dishict instructions to intervie6 MLA's, - - " 5

bstribute leaflets in the cornrnufiity, organize public meetings and advertise labour's

programme through the local press and io.'. In Ladysmith, for instance, local 1-80 4 ,

Business Agent Jack ~ t k i n s 6 n together with local officials organized a delegation .

composed of CCF party member Duncan McKenzie, Mrs. E. Michelson of the LPP Club, L.

Joe Moms of the Ladysmith sub-local, two members of the Old Age Pensioners' Club, 7

Mrs. Dan Campbell and Mrs. George OLlellette of<&e IWA Women's Auxiliary, all of

whom met kith CCF MLA for ~owichan-~ewcast le , Sam Guthn'e, regarding labour's

legislative brief.17 At this point, the issue of labour legislation reform did not stand out

particularly urgently from a broad raRge of proposals that labour was advancing. The '

BCFL had been lulled somewhat by assurances given through its participation in the'joint

government-labour committee set up after the 1945 labour lobby. Under the auspices of

that committee a subcommittee had been assigned to draft proposed amendments to

provincial.labour legislation in anticipahon of the termination of PC 1003. On 3 January $

1946, the full committee reconvened and heard Pearson explain that the labour code

subcommittee's report would not be discussed. Rather a government committee was

considering the matter of the ICA Act, but Pearson assured that prior to any bill coming

\

P

forward the joint%&mmittee would Lave an60pportunity to consider it. That inenti& was

repeated sev&&es throughout 1946. l8

0; - II ,14 January, a joint BCFL-TLC-Railway Brotherhoods delegation presented

ladour's demands to the provincial government for ~on~siderahorl during the spring session

' of the legislature. Included was a ' h a d refom programme of social and labour legislation.

M

Specific proposals were advanced with respect to the I@A Act, highiighted by tighter . o

a

restrictions on unfair labour practices and st3tutory union sequrity.19 With pressure -

coming frwn both labour and business, pearson sounded out his federal counterpart,

Humphrey itche ell, on the possibility of a one-year extension of PC 1003, in order to - " 6 * ,

provide more time for h b department to fmd soGe rniddlegound on a new labom bill. Six . $*

months appeared to be the most Pearson could expect, &d would io t obviate the need to d

6

pass legislation during the coming spring session.20 Mnreover, th"e organized business e

interests in the provjn6e would not have &en satkied wi;lh a mere extension of the federal cta,

a code for the 1947'bargaining year, nor were they prepared to wait for a new federal c0de . t~

-d -- serve as a model for the provinces. They had their own agenda and they wanted it enacted

quickly (see chapter eight above). In 1946, the CMA had auawked at being excluded \

from ~ r i o r consultation on labour matters. Now it was labOurrs turn to comp rl

I 1 March, the hastily drafied Bill 39 was tabled i*t.Je-legislam. - s ' > ,' ' . A

Plans for the spring labour lobby Were accelerated &th the focus now on Bill 39. . -----,. a

Unfortunately, amidst the a n t i - c o m u n i s ~ broadside being deli:dred by the employer

groups, the TLC pulled out at the last minute with council secretary Gervin announcing that ,

"last year's lobby accomplished nothing," but "left a somewhat sour taste in the mouths of w

the members of the Leg i~ la tu re . "~~ Non heless, over 216 delegates, including 22 -P B

renegades from the TLC assembled for two days in Victoria as the bill wound its way

through the legislative process. Objections focussed on the supirvised smke vote, fhe

penalties for violating the Act, k d protection for craft unions in industrial plants..? Much

was made of Pearson's alleged disagreements with the rest of tkye cabinet over the stnke

vote issue. After meeting with Pearson and Hart on 27 March, as the Bill went to second

reading, BCFL leaders Pritchett, Murphy and O'Brien expressed con ence that Pearson v

would not support the Bill. Pearson's concerns, however, were rooted more in e x w e n c y . . V

than in principle. He knew from long experience in the department that the st pervised '&

.,ballot was "cumbersome" and in some cases; as with the IWA, "almost impossible to < .

apply.'q3 There is no doubt, from his long record in the labour portfolio;'[hat Pearson's

sympathies were with the general intent of the employers. But he was also a Vancouver

1slanh polkician with his base in the labour stronghold of ~ a n a i m b . The haste with which

the Act was patched together, fuelled'by the zealous desire of employer to punish labour for

its militancy the year b;tfok, had left Pearson feeling uneasy. Knox's characterization df

the minister as "this lone liberal r$hmer" trying to. withstand the conservative assault

against the "liberal reformist impulse" af his old associate Duff PattuIlo, is

Nevertheless, Pearson was cfight amidst class and regional conflicts that manifested C

thkmselves to a certain extent witkiin his own party and government. . .

Soon after Bill 39 had been rammed through the legislature without signfficant

amendment,25 IWA delegates assembled for their W a g ~ s and Contract Conference on 29- P

30 March. In his opening remarks, ~ritcR6tt clearly pjaced , . the 1947 negotia,tions in the t

context of this p w waightjacket for labour-Bill 3%-which represented a powerful state-

" % S X

ernploygr-AFL @fekive against industrial uni6;ism in Canada. It cltarly added new 0

"responsibilities and gravit " to the situation the union found itself in entering &

p e g ~ t i a t i o n s . ~ ~ But Dalskog sounded a warning noting the heavy cos: to the employer of B

the combined wage proposal and welfiue fund. We must realize, he told the 94 delegates,

that "our position is not as good as last yew which was the fizst industry-wide struggle

,sincethe depression." It came irmmbately fokwing the war with the membership restless

and labur 's national campaign more ~ o o r d m a t e d . ~ Nevertheless, buoyed by Bjarnason's

&mmces*that with 1946 pnce increases of between 17 and 43 percent, and profits up 90

to 65 percent, the industry c@d ea~ily afford its demands, the union adopted ah ambitious 4 r.

programme under the slogan%o contract - no work.'* 3-

The main demands fop both coast and interior locals were 20 cents amok the board, 2

an industry-wide 40-hok week, a healthand welfare @an and union shop.% Attached to the D '

wage demands were specific pmposals for a guaranteed daily rate for piece workers, d

. special idjustments for train mews, mill engineers and other trades, elimination of all range \

rates and of the long hours at straight~time put in by cook and bunkhouse c r e ~ s . ~ 9 To

back ip these demands delegates agreed to boost the newly-insti6ted 25-cent per capita

monfi1.y assessment through voluntary contributions of one day's pay in order to reach the

target sf $100,000 by the summer. These contributions, which were to be collected during

thrnkmth of ~ d y , would gb directly - into 3 the main strike fund and were to be used for no

other purpose.30

Following the passage of Bill 39 the labour movement cooled its heels as far as +

is

political action and lobbying was concerned. The focus shifted from the legislature to the --. *- .

industrial arena where, as a Vancouver Labour Council (CCL) resolution bravely asserted: - I Several large unions.. .are now in the process of preparing for negoti3tions -

and are faced with the provisions of Bill 39 which places these unidns in such a position that the membership may be forced to resort to spontaneous walkouts in support of their negotiating committees.. .Such Guerrilla action as may k taken by the membership of these unions will require the highest

'

type- of job leadership and coordination and also the widest support from all -pade unions and other organizations with the interests of the working O ri .people at heart.

Predicting such 'spontaneous s e e s to occur soon after the proclamation of Bill 39, the

Labour Council called for all unions; veterans, farmers, housewives and other sympathetic 3 - &

t.2

organizations to be prepared to iend. support. All workers within reach of this call were

urged "to start mining themselves for spontaneous action by participating in mass Labour

Demonstrations on May 1st.of this year."31

Coast loggers had apparently already begun their training in spontaneous "guerrilla"

action in the form'of their unofficial Saturday hdidays to enforee h e 40 hour week. That '

...- : "

acGon no doubt inspired much of the rhetoric M i n d the Vancouver Labour Council call to

arms, and apparently pointed to the woodworken' union as the most likely candidate for an'

initial confrontation with the state once Bill 39 became law. In the @ince George area a 1. *

preliminary meeting of trade unions was heleon 13 April with delegates from IWA local 1 -

b 424; Carpenters and Joiners, CBRE and t e B-ders' Alliance. To prepare, for

LLcomrnon action7' a conference was planned for May of all units of organized labour in the . ,

area; a resolution drafted condemning Bill-39, and arrangements begun for a special May

Day r a l l ~ . 3 ~ In preparation for an expected province-'wide confrontati~n, the BCFL 4

advanced its annuaf c o n v e n h date from September to June, calling on the people OF

British Columbia to bec'ome a "striking force for representative government and returning

' 0 the power of governinent to the people."33

With negotiations about to begin, and, as part of its conmbution to the' proposed. ~ . - I

guerrilla action, or perhaps more correctly-guenilla thea t ry~is t r ic t One staged an almost D

comical expose of an alleged labour-spy scheme that,had apparently been ongoing at

Bloedel, Stewart and Welch since just after the 1946 strike. The 21 April edition of the ,

- ,

Lumber ,Worker was all ablaze with photos, sworn affidavits and lu-rid details on how the *

labour-spy racket worked. During the 1946 strike Don McAllister, an 18 ye& old logger a-

with BSW's Port qlberni operation had.spoken up at a strike committee meeting with '/' . .

Personnel Manager T.J. Noblein favour of a company r uest to allow constructian work 5. on water and power line$ to remain open. ~ c & e r helped sway the meeting and

-afterward wascontacted by Noble as a 'liberal-minded" individual who might be interested

- in discussing the camp recreational problem with him. At the beginning of January 1947;

~ o b l e sought his advice concerning a planl~Ed iEcreationa1 hall at the Franklin ~ i v e r camp .

13

as a pretext for a more pointed dissussiodon the economics of the industry and the quality 0

of IWA leadership. Noble stated his belief in honest trade unioni2m, but feared that the

.,-- ,,lio~'s officers were leading the memkrship deliberately into another disastrous strike.

.With the consent of Mark Mosher, local 1-85 secretary, McAllister played along withe

Noble's request for weekly repofts tb be submitted to Stuart Research on the internal

policies, prgblems and ~ctics of the WA.- Noble, who served on the employ& advisory

committee to Stuart, arranged for McAllister to meet with Stuart on 7 February. After

McAllister passed Stuart's scrutiny, Noble offered him $100 a month plus more if needed.

McAllister stalled on filing any reports., In mid-March he was inspucted to find out the 8

likelihood of a strike, the union's exact wage demand and to report on &e 40-hour week

fight. At this point Masher reported the whole affair to Dalskog, and it was decided, with

the loggers job action a b u t to commence, to expose the whole plot.34 ,

At a 5 April executive meeting of 1-85, with, Dalskog present, a scheme was 0

hatched to entrap ~ o b l e at the usual rendezvous spot in the cemetery outside Alberni. *

Dalskog's sworn affidavit reveals some guemlla antics bordering on high farce. With /

Dalskog and the local executive hiding in the bushes, McAllister was to meet Noble,

supposedly with information, but instead would hand him back - money alread; received for "

acting as a "stooge." They waited all afte'moon until five p.m. when McAllister appeared to

' say he had not been able to contact Noble. The crew returned to the cemetery on 6 April

and resumed their concealed spots. Dalskog explains whfit'transpired after Noble's arrival. ,. . . -

After a short conversation, Noble turned away from McAllister and started to walk along

inside the fence towards where Dalskog was hiding, camera in hand.

Npble stopped near me and inspected a gravestone.. .Atqthat time he was not C

more than 30 feet away. He then took a few steps towiird me. Knowing that my koncealment was poor and that I would be discovered any minute, I jumped up and climbed over the fence. Noble stood still as if frozen to the ground. He looked sick. I said to him "Your game's up,'Noble." He

' made no reply and continued to stand frozen to the ground. I then took a photograph ~f him which did not develop or 'print properly. 1 wound my ir

'camera for another "shot" when I saw McAlLister coming rapidly towards us. When he arrived he handed the envelopeacontaining the money to Noble.. ,i took 2 more photographs, one as Noble opened the envelope and one as he was about to hand it back. said to Noble "Your &tempts to hire B agents in the.IWA haven't worked." He replied: "What's all this about., ."

B

- As Noble turned to walk away, Dalskog snapped another gem, captioned in the Lumber

Worker: "Heading back to his car, the'picture of abjection and defeat with his plans for

union-wrecking blown sky high." The members'of the local executive then came our of C

concealment and stood around Noble's car as he got in. McAllister tried one last time to' . .

g v e Noble the money, and as the manager drove off, Dalskog took a'sixth photograph of

the back of his car featuring the licence number. A final snapshot showed local president

Yates "congratdating ~ c ~ k t e r on a good job well d0ne."3~

The 21 April expos6 in the Lumber Worker prompted a sharp reply from Prentice

Bloedel to his employees denying any solicitation of employees for purposes of spying. d

Noble claimed McAllister had approached him several times with information concerning

communism and a proposed strike. The company, Bloedel asserted, was not opposed to .+

trade unionism nor hostile to the IWA. "The company is o p p o s d to communism and to

the extent that the leadership of the IWA, or any union is.communistic, it is opposed to that . a

leadership."36 Bloedel did not explain why Noble had, without any 'questions, apparently

found it quite normal to meet McAllister in the Alberni cemetery to receive lists of all

communists in British Columbia.3'

Although the scheme was rather silly and amateurish i t is unlikely, particularly

giveathe detailed nature of McAllister's sworn testimony, that it was all invention. True or

not, the labour-spy story fit neatly into the unioli's spring campaign for the 40-hour week,

and against Bill 39. A1 Parkin, the union's newly-appointed (and first) director of its

Education and Publicity Department established at the January c ~ n v e n t i o n , ~ ~ cleverly \

Cu

packaged the whole story in the Lumber Worker by placing the labour-spy racket and the Q

cyrent an%-union dnve in its historical Context dating back to the 1880s in North America. --_

In the 1920s, acco;ding to this analysis, the LWKJ had succumbed to organireddtiruption

and factionalism and wa<easily smashed by the bosses. ?his latest attempt was far from

the &st and certainfy not the last. A strong IWA over the previous four years had meant a

loss in profits to the luinber operators' Parkin admitted. Their response was to try to break

the union, If not by a frontal attack, then by working from the inside. "This is precisely the

program of big business i n this pear of 1947. It lies behind thgir anti-communist ranting,

their support of Bill 39, Grid their phoney talk about 'unions becoming too strohg."' The

open-shop men liked uni0hs alnght, Parkin quoted a fictional character from Finley Peter

~ u n n e , ' if properly conducted. And how would they have them conducted: "No strikes,

no rules, no scales, hardly any wages and darn few members."39

Both Parkin arid his adversaries T.J. Noble and Prentice Bloedel had put their

finger on the critical issue for communists in the British Columbia trade unions in 1947.

BiH 3-9, quite subtly, was not aimed at them explicitly. It contained no anti-communist rule

as did Taft-Hartley. T o many, including union members, it appeared as the logical

outgrowth of giving unions legal recognition. The balance, tipped too far in labour's

favour during the war, needed to be corrected with a dose of greater responsibility on the

trade union srde. It was questionable whether the IWA could, in the minds of its own

members, let alone the public, conclusively link up Bill 39 with the long-history of anti-

communism, blacklisting and red-baiting in the province's heavy industries. The spy-

racket expos6 was an attempt to do just that. The union's strategy for its 1947 negotiations -

was premised on its ability to connect the political fight on Bill 39, led by the left-

dominated BCFL, and its more militant affiliates, with its own economic ~ r r n ~ g l e . ~ * On its

success in this regard might very well rest the fate of the much broader popular sauggle on

the left against an increasingly more reactionary coalition government. The stakes were

high indeed as the union negoti,ating committee sat down at its bargaining table with Stuart .) .

Research ro go about thee+latively mundane business of renegotiating its collective .$ -

agreement.

After the initial sparring at the beginning of May, with Stuart proposing bonding of

- union members as a pre-condition to further negotiations, and the union threatening a stnke

vat? if negotiations did not commence irnmechately (see chapter eight above), the two

panics spent much of the month clearing away the more routine of the contract issues and -

2

preparing the ground for the major ones. Grievance and arbitration procedures, vacations

with pay, leaves of absence, senioriry and so.on occupied early meetings. Of note was a

preliminary discussion on the work week. Both union and management placed the issue e

squarely in the context of productivity, though there was considerable disagreement on

how the latter was to be measured and whether it was up or: down over the 1945-46 period.

Nevertheless, when Stuart pointedly asked if the union agreed that "man hours production

was the crux of the whole question," Pritchett agreed "that cbuld be considered the

question." Thus, at the outset, Stuart established the operators' main point, that the work

week issue was a moneta@consideration, not just a matter of working condition^.^'

On 19 May, four days after the official proclamation of the ICA Act (1947), and

already four weeks into the negotiation process, Stuart finally tabled the industjl's wage

offer. In order to halt the erosi'm of wage differentials according to skill, the employers

offered an increase in percentage terms: 10 percent, but with a minimum of 10 cents per

hour to protect those at the lowest qnd of the scale, dl basdon a 44-hour work week. The

increase, Stuart claimed, would c ~ s t the industry $18 million in 1947. Union shop: and all ~

,

other monetary demands were rejected. The welfare fund was to be set aside as a matter - -

for individual operators, H.R. MacMillan Export's timely announcement on 5 May of a

contributory pension plan for three-year employees, behind which the union saw a dark '

plot to derail its industry-wide demand, did much to reinforce this position. Special wage -

increases for certain occupations were seen as destroying exisiing wage differentials,

causing further dissatisfaction amongst employees.42 .

The union committee quickly re+cted the wagehour offer, even with Stuart's h in t

of possible seasonal exceptions on the hoursquestion. By the end of the 20 May session, - . I

Stuart had closed off further debate, indicating the union had the industry's best offer. If

rhe ~ i i t r i c t officers advised non-acceptance to their membership, the operators were

prepared to apply i m d a r e l y for c~nciliarion.~~

With Pritchett flying off to Toronto immediately after the 20 May negotiating

meeting to consult with his CCL National Wage Coordinating.Comrnittee, any final *

decisibn of the employers' last offer was put on hold^^^ The District Policy Committee 1

- \

meeting held 23 May, and chaired by Dalskog in Pritcbett's absence, seemed to leave no

- doubt as to which direction the union was moving. If the operators were proceeding-to ~

conciliation under the ICA Act (1947)' the union was not about to follow, Dalskog-

presented a 10-point programme on behalf of the District ohce r s intended to put the union \

in> position of strike readiness. The resolution contained a detaled smke plan calling for a

District Stnke Committee, seven subcommittees, the printing of picket cards, vouchers and

permits, and the setting up of a facility as central smke headquarters. Local unions w%e ?

advised imrndately to establish action committees which would become strike committees

i n the event of a strike. These action committees were to begin to mobilize the

membership, organize participation in any District-wide vote, and speed up the collection of

the strike fund. A cautionary note was sounded on this last point. As a matter of policy the

committee reaffirmed the decision of the January Wages and &tract Conference, that no

strike relief was to be issued until 30 days after the outbreak of a strike, except under

special circumstances to be determined by full investigation of the recipient's.need. A

decision on the amount of smke relief to be made available to individuals was to be held in

' - The experience of the 1936 strike indicated a need to conserve resources until the

final stages when the membership's enthusiasm started to fade. But this provision also

reflected the fact that voluntary con-mbutions to the stnke fund during May had fiat come up

to expectations. -Moreover, Stuart Research had moved to obstruct monthly collection of

the dues increase effective 1 April, byadvising clients not to comply with requests from -

locals to increase the amount checked-off. Quite correctly, Stuart maintained that the

voluntaq assignment of wages forms were signed for a specific amount and employers had

no right to deduct an additional 50 cents without another assignment form signed for the

new amount. Local executives and business agents thus had to repeat. the whole process ~f

providing new forms and getting over 25,000 members to sign them, at a time when they -

were supposed to be mobilidng members for a s m k d 6 Needless to say, it was a long

time after the 1947 agreement was settled before everyone"was signed up at the new $ 2 : ~ 5

figure.47 The union's-policy on str&e relief, in place since the beginning of the year,- \

. r

certainly would not have aided collection either. Members were already being assessed an

additional 25 cents per month to build up a strike fund from which most of them would not m

benefit b t l y in 1947. Under these circumstances, many would question the propriety of

being asked for an additional day's wages. Yet, without a substantial-fund to back it up, 4\.

the District negotiating committee felt re!uctant to push its demands too far.*

Upon Pritchett's return from .Toronto, the District Policy Committee convened on

26 May. Unfortunately, a full text of Pritchett's reponis not available, only a press item

noting that the CCL committee had recommended to all affiliates that no settlement should

be finalized without prior consulption with the national b0dy.~9 ~ p p a r e n t l ~ nothing

decided in Toronto had preempted the smke plans initiated by the District Executive on 23

May. The Policy Committee immediately passed a resolution calling for a coast-wide /

_-' ,

referendum. Question one asked whether the union should reject the employers' offer (the

terns ofwhich were not specified on j e ballot) and continue negotiating. Question two

asked, "Failing satisfactory concessions to our membership on our 1947 demands, do you

authorize your hstrict Policy Committee to call a strike?"50 The referendum was to take 30

-days. Officially, the union's position was that i t had not broken off negotiations but was

simply &ng membership opinion on the employers' last offer, as Stuan and the operators

had often demanded in 1946. 11 was Sium who was refusing to bargain in g o d faith by .,

having the provincial govemmen~ appoint a conciliation offickr prior to a full heanng of the

union's main demands. The union stood fully ready to resume negotiations at any tirne.51

It was evident, however, that the union was intent on shohng its resolve to circumvent the

ICX Act (1947) i n line with BCFL strategy by conducting its own strike vote as an

apparent rider to a vote on Stuart's offer. Stuart mmplained loudly about h e unnecessary

30 day delay.52 But his real concern was to force the union into a conciliation pmedure

resulting in a favourable third party recommendation for the industry and an even longer . a

delay before the union could take a legal strike vote.

The union publicity committee chairman, J. Forbes, gloated sowewhat at the

"genuine discomfort" of the employers' spokesmen when asked to outline a quicker means

h - than the ballot. It was amusing "to hear them hint at a speedier methodbut decline to name

i t . Obviously a show of hands was in mind," Forbes reported in his negotiation bulletin, C

"but their objections would have been ai even more thoroughly ridiculous farce than they

were had mention been made of this thought, in light of their loud claims of interest in

C . membership rights last year during the conduct of show of hands votes in somelocals on

the Sloan Award."53

The union was evidently confident that it had struck on a strategy which allowed it

to circumvent the despised labour act, while at the same time honouring the democratic

rights of its members. District officers felt they could, with the full support of other

members, ignore the law but not the lessons of 1946. More importantly, the 30-day hiatus

would allow the union more time to bolster its strike fund which only started to accumulate

during May, as well as to join its collective bargaining struggle with the larger Federation

campaign against the Act and the coabtion government. That same week in which the IWA

initiated its stnke vote on the coast. however, Harvey Murphy's Mine Mill union signed an

agreement with Consolidated Mining and Smelting at Trail and Kimberley for 12; cents

a across the board, once again raktng some of the steam out of the woodworkers' wage

drive. This settlement d s o left ~ h s & c t One as the most likely canddate to gshead-to-head - .

t+iLtt the government in a confrmtation over the ICA Act (1 947).

The relationship between the coast and the fiterior which had also complicated

matters in 1936. continued to provide obstacles to a c o k n t industry-wide strategy in

1947. The interior, once again proceeding separately with the two industry asmiations in

the north and south, had m e d a month later than on the coast. In fact, the first meeting

with the northern operators was on 29 May. After the experience of the 'year before.the

union had little hop: of drawing interior members into a strike situation based on the *

situation on the coast. A weak vote in the interior would be a drag on negotiations with 9 . P

Stuart Research. The strategy for 1947, much as it had been in practice the year before, \

/ was to win as much as it could on the coast and use those gains as a basis for a settlement

in,the interior. At the end of May, interior negotiations recessed until the middle of ~ u n e . 5 ~

Separate referenda were held in Prince George and in the southern interior, but these votes

were downplayed, and treated as quite distinct from the main coast vote.55 I '

The District's position in the interior was particularly weakened by the tenuous hold

it had in the Okanagan. In towns such as Kelowna and Vernon, lumber workers composed

only a small fractioh of the population. Only amongst packinghouse workers had industrial

unionism made qny further inroads. According to report IWA representative Thomas

MacDonald sent to Dalskog at the beginning of May, both these groups were subjected to \ '

concentrated attacks from "monopoly," compounded by the fact that most workers never ',

received any organizational anention-It would be n&essary, according to MacDonald, to

broaden out an organizational base into other sectors of these communities in order to 4

guarantee the permanent existence of the union in the face of a population that was "very

bzckward, poktically, as well as organizationally." In MacDonald's opinion, owing to the '

scattered nature and smallness of & woodworking industry the only way to establish a

permanent organization, without an unrealistic level of expenditure, would be thhugh

organizing all groups in the community. ,"We should organize every unorganized person

we can, even though we turn them over to the A.F.L.," MacDonald urgedM That kind of

broadly-based, activist approach to trade union practice was beginning to sound

increasingly more out of step with the actual practice of industrial relations in the fore? a

industry.

With the strike vote in progress, the DNA moved its p u b l i h ~ machinery into high

-I gear. , Me1 Fulton, chair of the Speakers' Committee, contacted all local secretaries asking % - - - - them to arrange for broadcasts on local radio stations of a CCL recording on wages, prices,

profits and employment. Local rqps were urged to schedule evening meetings in their

camps and mills for which the Dismct would provide speakers. Such meetings were &'

scheduled during the first half of June in Duncan, Courtenay, Alberni and Victoria as well

, as in loggers' local 1-7 1 and at Hammond c&% in the Fraser Valley. Notable for its non-

participation in scheduling such meetings was the New Westminster local.57 Problem -

'. mills, particularly those with "weak crews" in the Vancouver local requested District

President Mtchett as speaker to help bring workers into ljne behind a strike.58 Speakers ,

0

were provided with notes on how to present the struggle to its members:

employer .moves: - would l~ke union battle government alone on Bill 39 - obvious for application of Bill 39 ICA Act 1947 - try to force union if a strike occurs to strike at most unfavourable b e - through ICA Act, force provincial vote on acceptance of conciliation

award

union moves: - must link up political fight on Bill 39 with economic struggle - Bill 39 stands in way of achieving economic demands - mobihze membership - vote down employer proposal - authorize policy committee for

That strategy got a receptive hearing in the big logging locals but not in New

westminster where the union stnke bdot met with outright rejection by the local executive.

At a special meeting held on 30 May, the 1-357 executivg endorsed rejection of the

employers' last proposal, but voted to recommend a no vote to its members on the strike

I The background to this critical vote leads us back once again to the controversy

over the 1946 fighting fund.

At the end of the 1946 stnke, the District au m/ 'tor (Eric Bee of TLN3) found at least . I

$1 800 not accounted for by receipts in the accounts of local 1-357. Bee reported the matter ,

to District Secretary ~ e l k e s s who seized the books and then submitted the audit to the

District. An International investigating committee consisting of vice-presidents Karly -

Larsen and William Botkin, Danny O'Brien of the CCL and Dakkog, found evidence of

continuing carelessness with the' management of funds in the local office, despitetwamings *

from the District executive. Local President P a t y S@th, and Secretary Jack Lindkay, as

the officials responsible, andmth strong District loyalists, were ordered t~ make up a

shortfall of $877' in per capita tax owing tb the District. More significantly, the committee

recommended that bbth be barred from nomination to local o f f i e for an indefinite period.

Unfortunately for the District leadership, with the two leftist mainstays of the local

execufive out of the running, the New ~ e s t k i n s t e r opposition bloc, led by Stuart Alsbury

. and George Mitchell, seized gn this issue. They used it, together with the issue of the

local's war b n d s and general disgruntlepent with the conduct of the 1946 strike to win

control of the local executive. As an immediate consequence of that turnover, one of the @ <, 2

I

iargzst and most important locals in the uniori fell out of step with the Dismct's strike e

strategy for ,1947.61 9

Right in the midst of the Dismct One strike vote, from 6-8 June, the BCFL held its , I

1 .

,_ important arinual convention, the main focus of which was the campaign against the ICA

Act (1947). 'one hundred and one delegates unanimously endorsed an executive resolution * I . ".

1 calling for united political action "to rally the people of British Columbia to bring about the 5

full defeat of the Coalition government." Full assistance was promised to any union

defymg the anti-labour clauses of the ICA Act (1947). Member unions yere to be assessed 3 '

a special per capita tax (which even&lly raised $16,000) to help fight the Act. Vice-.

D President McAuslane, in his,explanatiun to the convention as to why British Columbia had * a

been singled out as the testing grbund for anti-union legislation in Canada, put the

wwdworkers &uarely at the forefront of the smggle: m

, - Labour today in British Columbia is again spearheading the Canadian Congress of Labour's wage dnve for the year 1947. The International W d w o r k e r s of America is negotiating with Stuart Research Agency and

the lumber operato& in the Interior. AU this is known to Premier Hart and Minister of Labour Pearson, as well as the big industiialists, and they saw 'the pattern last year. They unde r s td that in the year 1946;B.C. led the wage drive and so big . f i n e s is vitally interested in the B.C. picture..

Big business, McAuslane explained, simply brought presSure to bear on the Coalition

government to introduce "this infamou&legislatio~ . . to stem the tide of organized labour in

the Province." By doing so, they dso realized that the whole- wage bive of Canadian

labour in 1947 will be weakened. The most immediate task was therefore to ensure that the

woodworkers won their fight for an adquate wage increase, thus establishing the pattern

once again for the other CCL unions:62 ~ e ~ o n d that lay the forging of a united labour

movement, declared the J3.C Lumher Worker, "to defeat the g o v e m n t by attacking them

on both the economic and political fronts." To that end a standing committee of 17 trade

unionists was elected at the convention, including Pritchett and Greenall, as well as white

bloc leader Al~bury.~) The latter felt compelled to dispel any doubts over his full sympathy

with the committee's goals by declaring he would work in conjunction with other members

of the committee to defeat the labour

Back in his own local, Alsbury was somewhat less resolute. At a special local

executivemeeting held the day after the BCFL convention, Pntchett delivered an address C

on behalf of the ~is t r jc t Policy committee intended to convince executive members to

reconsider their rejection of the strille ballot. The District President, trying to caIm fears,

noted that the provincial Department of Labour &d not consider the@ballot illegal. Nor was

the purpose of the District neceSsdy to strike, heequivocated, but rather to use the smke

vote as a lever in negotiations. Alsbury, finding himself caught in the middle, could not

say yes or no on the motion to reconsider, but managed to quote from the ICA Act (1947)

to show that the local executive would be liable to fines for taking snike*actio* on the basis , C

of the present ballot. Most executive members concurred with Alsbury's sentiments. The

vote went 17 to four to uphold the earlier decision.65 . / L+ --- --.

Four days later, Pntchen returned to thesceneof earlier confrontation, a sandlot .

just off CU'L property at Fraser Mills, where he had received a drubbing in 1931. Still

barred from speakmg in the plant, Pritchett held this lunch-time meeting a few hundred feet .

from the d l ' S b a c k door in order to convince the @-and-file of the biggest plant in 1 -

357 to defy its executive and cote for the strike. He exphined the two-part ballot, and the

inadequacy of the employers' offer designed to split the workers with its percentage terms.

I. The w u r k a seemed more coricerned about the implications of the second half of the ballot.

One, sent him a question on a scrap of paper asking about the penalties in the ICA Act

(1947) against striking. Last year, Pritchett told the man, the strike was called illegal; both

union and employers cirmmvented wage ceiling and collective bargaining laws. "Laws are

being Fumven ted everyday," the union president declared. "and we propose to do that in

the case of Bill 39 if it is in the, union's best interest." Back at the scene of his old

stomping grounds, Pritchett, who had been delivering such speeches night and day for a

week without rest, adopted a more aggressive stance than he had with the opposition-led

executive. Still, there was no applause as the men moved back to work.66

With an apparently welldeveloped intelligence system still intact, in spite of the

expos6 of Apnl, Stuart had picked up on the difficulties the union ballot was encountering

in some areas. ~ i ~ o r t i n ~ to his clients on 4 June, he noted that union reps had been very

active visiting plants, trylng to get stnke authorization should subsequent negotiations fail.

. Reports ofi-employee reaction to the ballot indicated confusion. Though workers were

expressing a willingness to reject the last offer, Stuart reported a definite reaction against

the strike authorization in some plants. He understocd the oppositib.n stemmed from the

reluctance of workers to face a stnke for a small additional wage increase, as well as from

uncertainty regarding the union's ability to call a legal strike except in accordance with the

A C ~ . ~ ' TO encourage those workers in their misgivings, Stuart Research placed prominent

ads in the press showing what teTi percent would actually mean for specific job categories.

The IWA ballot was reproduced and criticized for failing to state the details of the 4

employers' offer, and for seeking authorization for strike action pnor to completion of 6

negotiations. That was the same pattern, the ad reminded workers, that cost them $8

Dewhurst missed work to attend the BCFL convention she was fued immediately upon her

return. A second abvnt employee was also fired though she had not attended the

Cr convention. Twenty-eight workers wciii oii sGike in support of their two fued co-workers,

million in lost wages the year before. "It is agaiqst all accepted principlqs of sound and fair

collective bargaining and threatens new disruption to employment and earning power in

To get the same message to more isolated camps, Stuart Research sent placards for .'

operators to post: "What the 1947 Wage Offer Means to You,"69 And on 11 June he

circul&zed his clients f d s t s of employees regarded as permanent "who are either present

or potential leaders in thought among their fellow workers," perhaps 25-30 percent of each

company's crew. To these workers Stuart would send, free of charge, copies of the serni-

monthly publication Forest and Mill published by the British Columbia forest industry for

the purpose of disseminating a wider degree of public and employee knowledge of the

forest product indus'tries, "how they work and what they need to make them healthy and

progressive."7Pi4

While both Stuart and Pritchett worked on conyincing 'those wavering

woodworkers uneasy about defying the law, a small CCL affiliate at Imperial Laundry in

Nanaimo, the Laundry Workers' Union, local one, became the first union in British % .

Columbia to face the full force of the revised ICA Act. When' union member Violet

thus laying themselves open to penalties for ~triking'illegally.~~

On 17 June the appointment of a special prosecutor was announced by acting

Minister of Labour Kenney. On 20 June charges were laid against the laundry workers,

their union, as well as against CCLorganizer Radford and Island Labour Council official

Percy Lawson who had served as negotiator for the small union.72 This would be a test

case to see if under the terms of the ICA Act (1947) a union could be held liable in the .

courts for strike action of its memberst3 The BCFL immediately swung into action behind ,

the small coterie of strikers by appealing to all CCL unions to support the strike and send d

delegatis to an emergency conference in Nanaimo. The 17-member standing committee

met on 21 June and drew up a plan of action including the establishment of Figkt 3 3 ill 39

Cornmigees in all CCL unions, a mass letter-writing campaign directed at Premier Hart, a

one-dollar per member fighting fund and a mass pcotest rally for Vancouver citizens on

Sunday 6 July. On 26 June, a special Island Labour Council meeting attended by BCFL

officials Pritchett, Murphy and ~ c ~ u s l k e and 65 union delegitesfrorn 12 CCL and four

TLC unions, drafted further proposals to unite all unions behind tlie Laundry W0rkers.~4. 3

This move was in part a response to the Vancouver Trades and Labour Council decision t o , T

aid only TLC-affiliated unions,being attacked under the Act. That position had been

strongly supported by notable CCF members within the TLC such a s Tom Alsbury,

Stuart's brother. They followed the party line that changes to the Act would have to await ,

the 1948 sitting of the legislat~re.-~5 The

- heavy LPP contingent, would preempt its

CCF, always leery that the Federation with its

role as parliamentary opposition through more

drect forms of action, remained lukewarm on joining the economic and political struggles.

Similarly, LPP partisans within the trade unions were happy at any chance 'to upstage,

through more direct militant action, the official opposition in the legislature. That basic

pohtical division in the labour movement was at least in part responsible for the positions

taken by the executive of IWA loch 1-357 on the strike ballot which was coming to a close 4

just as the support campaign for the laundry workers began to take shape.

Two other developments on the larger North American stage unfolding at the same

time also served to inject additional significance into the Bill 39 embroglio. June 1947

witnessed the implementation of the Taft-Hartley ~ c t ' i n the United States, with the senate's

overwhelming vote to stnke down Truman's veto of the Wagner Act amendment. While

thousands of workers walked off the job in protest, the CIO General Executive%Board

resisted calls from communist-led unions such as UE for a 24-hour general strike.76 I n

Ottawa, on 17 June, the federal government's Bill 338, designed to replace PC 1003 in

certain areas under federaljurisdiction (most notably the railways) was introduced to *

43

parliament. Many of its provisions seemed to-echo the more restfich~e, institutionalizirg < , .

character of the ICA Act (1947).~? The Pacific Tribune distilled the hisioric moment for its 0

readers in a 27 June editorial dhich gave expression to much' of what IWA leaders had - . .

been trying to tell their members over the past month or,so. '

had "indeed honoured tlie ~ a n a i m o Laundry Workers with being the first 'test-case' in this .

deluge of fascist-type legislation against the trade unions of North ~merica." There was

only one answer to these aft- itch ell- art aqti-labour provocateurs. A labour movement -

united and determined to h&l back reaction.. :A labour movghent prepaied to strike no; %

only for wages, but for trade union survival."78 The IWA referendum ballot gave workers 3 '

a real opportunity to declare @ehselves on this question.

New Westminster was not the only local where opp sition was building to the

District leadership and its negcti~tion strategy. In 1946 the Vancouver mill local 1-217 had 0 . '

dernoris~ated lukewarm supPo; for the District Fighting Fund, and again in 1947 several

plants had required Pritchett's special attention in order to try ro rally the rank-and-file.

Together the two large: sawmill locals would account for almost 5000 actual votes =,in

any District referendum, equal to the combined strength of the other two large, logging

locals, 1-71 and 1-80 (Vancouver and Duncan). The remaining four coast locals' '

combined balloting strength amounted to less than 2500, approximately equal to th*e

avekage vote of each of the big four locals. The District ballot would be decided mainly by P:

these four. On 23 June, John McCuisbhair of the ballpring committee, announced the <'

results of the referendum vote. All eight locals polled'turned down the em

offer with a combined vote of 80 percent. b u t on the crucial strike vote, drily 6

of the membership authorized the District committee to call a strike failing

concessions during further negotiations. More importantly, serious weaknesses' were

, noted in the sawmilling section of the industry, particularly in New Westrninster, where the ' = '

b

strike vote was turned down and voting results in some plants posted prior to the

announcement of the District-wide c0unt.~9 While 1-217 passed the strike referendum, it

did so with a low percentage count. Aside from noting 90 percent support for both

propositions in local 1-71, no local breakdown was given by the union; however a

reasonable estimate can be made based on the local results of elections for District officers

held in February-March 1948. For the five top table officer positions, the combined I

sawmill vote of 1-357 and 1-217sweni against all but one of th&umbent slate. Dalskog

lost to Alsbury by a significant 265-1 to 2007 margin in the presidentid race. Only the well-

known favourite son, Etchett, running for first vice-president, eaked past Llbyd Whalen, - the Trotskyist on the "white bloc" slate, by a margin of 2472 to 2321. While New

Westminster decisively voted against the District executive, ip 1-217 Dalskog managed

only 56 percert.t.of the vote and Pritchett only 60 percent. Whatever the local result in the

1947 strike vote, it is clearaat the union was seriously divided on basic strategy between

its two main sectors, logging and sawmilling.80 It would have been very difficult to use 1 / such a vote<,as an effective lever in negotiations, let alone as the basis for an actual strike in

contravention of the law. The discrepancy between 80 percent and 67.8 percent contained

a clear-statement from the mill workers that they would, in' the majority, abide by the law,

and did-not intend to engage in another "political" smke like the one in 1946. Rejection of P

S t u q ' s offer indicated they wanted to confine their fight to one with the employers only,

limits of conventional industrial relations procedures.

During the 1946 strike the union'had followed two seemingly contradictory paths,

the one leading to a trek on Victoria, the other, through conciliation to the Sloan 9

recommendationsg It was argued above that this ambivalence was indicative of a union

divided between two very different industrial relations realities. That division was borne

oubeven more concretely in 1947, and was reflected as well by the manner i n which the

District Policy Cornittee proceeded after the 26 May break in negotiations. With Stuart I . proceeding to conciliation, the union proceeded to circumvent the ICA Act (1947) by

conducting its vote. During the strike vote, and following the appointment of Conciliati~n 9

Officer William Fraser, the District Negotiating Committee resumed talks with Fraser as

chair.81 Not having been the one to apply for conciliation, the union could at least argue .J

- that it had not actively complied with the Act, but was merely responding to Stuart's move f

6 resume talks. With the expectation in the air that a solid strike vote would push the

conciliation process towards the union's position, at an executive meeting the day prior to

the release of coast ballot results, Pritchett reported that the employers' attitude had changed (I

somewhat since the District proceeded to referendum. Talks were going well. Stuart .

Research had agreed to include the furniture section of the industry, and to discuss

adjustments for special job classifications such as cook and bunkhouse crews, shingle

workers, trainmen and engineers. Progress was also made on hours of work, with the

employers looking favourably at 40 hours if the union would agree to optional special .

arrangements between local committees and management. In the interior, negotiations .

proceeded with the union reducing its demands in both the wages and hours department~.~2

Following announcement of the disappointing referendum results, which the union

tried to interpret publicly as a strong mandate to strike,O District negotiahons moved

quickly to a settlement. On 30 June, Stuart offered 11; cents with an optional 40144-hour

week in logging only. The union committee tentatively proposed an optional 40144-hour

week across the industry, based on time and one-half after 40 hours. This offer was

coupled with an undertaking to drop the union shop and-Welfare plan if the employers

$accepted these terms and dropped their bonding proposal. Stuart asked the union to

establish a minimum wage demand based on the condition that overtime be paid after 40

hours on an optional 40/44-hour week. The industry obviously regarded the hours-of-

work issue as a cost item. If required to pay extra wages for the last four hours of the

~vorking week, then its across-the-board wage offer would have to be adjusted

-308- I P

On Wednesday 2 July, just four days prior to the rally scheduled in ~anco&er to

kick off the Federation's mass campaign against the ICA Act (1947.), the IWA and the

industry found common ground on a wagehour combination: 12; cents per hour increase.

and a 40-hod week to be worked within six days beginning midnight Sunday, extendable .?

to 44 hours or longer with time and one-half after 40. employees (as

well as fire fighters, first-aid a te~dants , boatmen continue to be

exempted from the hours-or-work clause, though one regular day off in seven was

provided for cook and bunkhouse men "if practicable." A 44-hour, six-day week would

continue to be the norm in both sectors, though the 12; cent increase would be augmented

with the additional overtime built into t,he new~proposal. The 40-hour week as a conditi n P of work intended to provide greater leisure for $nrkers was stiH left to the individual

-r

employer to decide upon based on his production requirements. The optional hours - *

compromise was readily accepted by the District Committee since it allowed the union to .

claim victory in the 40-hour struggle while at the same time satisfying the desire amongst a

large sector of l o g g a for as much overtime work as was available. Moreover, union shop

and the welfare fund (as well as the employers' bonding proposal) were dropped, as were

union claims for additional category adjustments in the various trade and piece-work

sectors of the industry. Only the operating engineers received special wage adjustments.

Employees worhng.on a piece basis would have the 12; cents consolidated with the 15-

cent increase From the year before and paid as an hourly rate of 27; cents on top of their

normal piece-work earr1ings.~5 The union regarded this concession as a foot in the door

towards the elimination of piece work. For the companies i t was a concession that, in

many cases, could easily be eroded at a later date by converting the hourly "bonus" back

into piece-work terms, with the mutual consent of employees involved.R6 As with the

hours-of-work issue, there was no clear concensus from employees involved in favour of a

straight hourly wage. Fallers and buckers were generally the highest paid of the logging - crews and did not want to see that position eroded. They were in favour of a daily

6 guaranteed wage to protect them in the event of poor weather or timber conditions. But

they also wanted to keep the piece-rate. For them it was the basis of their higher earnings,

but, for the union, a source of speed-up, accidents and a deterrent to an ipdustry-wide

application of the 40-hour week. According to Stuart Research negotiator Billings, the

union cmitinued to "cater" to the demands of the fallers for fear they might break away and

form their own union.87 Perhaps, more likely was their transformation into straight

contractors, especially with the introduction of the power saw.

. With its 12; cent across-the-board increase, once again District One seemed to have

been locked into the same wage settlement that Mine Mill had reached earlier at Kirnberley

and Trail. Also as in 1946, the coast settlement established the precedent for the interior. 1

- Both the north and the south (the Kootenays) settled for 12; cents and 44 hours (without

overtime after 40), with conciliator Fraser playing a key role in the south. All range rates

were eliminated in the north, and two weeks vacation won for five year employees, as on

the coast. In the Kootenays, the probationary period for new employees was cut from 90

to 60 days. Negotiation in the central interior region of Kamloops-Kelowna, where raiding

by the Lumber and Sawmill Workers' Union complicated matters, dragged on longer, with

Fraser once again i n t e r ~ e n i n g . ~ ~ The fact that the settlement in the weaker interior locals

much more closely resembled the coast settlement than was the case the year before points

again to the poverty of the coast terms.

The post-mortem on the settlement was delivered in an article in the Lumber Worker

by Dismct Secretary Melsness.89 To begm with, he noted the factors workmg against the

union. First, there was the passage of Bill 39. Secondly, unlike in 1946, the union policy "

committee was not backed up by a strong strike vote at the outset, "nor was there any

reserve of funds such as a special fighting fund which carried ou"t the 1946 stnke to a

successful conclusion." Melsness in effect admittid that by the end of May there was still

not a substantial fund. When the employers' dug in their heels at the end of May, he

wrote , "it became n e c e s s k to take a strike vote and to launch a campaign for the building

@

up of a fund." The we"8Rness of the strike vote also reflected itself in *voluntary 3-

conmbutions to the strike fund. Thirdly, &en, Melsness n o p i the problems in the sawmill

locals during the vote, particularly in New Westminster. Nevenheless, he claimed, 12;

cents won without a strike could be considered a tremendous victory. In fact, given the

level of lumber prices and profits during 1946-47 upon which the union based its case for

20 cents,w and given the rapidity with which 15 cents had evaporated after June 1946, 12;

cents did not give the average woodworker much to cheer a b u t , except inasmuch as he

won it without loss of work. B

The greatest victory: "both politically and econodcally, that has been won by the

W A in all of its history," claimed the District Secretary, was the 40-hour week.. By

providing more employment, curtailing profits and "spreading out" production, the

inevitable crisis of over-production and depression would be postponed and softened-"A

highly impodant political victory" for the IWA. There are two interesting elements to this

analysis. First, it ignored the economic reality that, especially in logging, 40 hours wmld

be applied seasonally depending on the requirement~of the operation. The industry was

already in the midst of an economic boom which had boosted employment in both logging

and sawmilling dramaticqlly.91 In such boom conditions there w o z d be incentive for

4 operators to stretch the work week to the limit that the contract and the l a b allowed.

During periods of conmction, lumbermen would be more likely to pare their work forces

to the bone and then use the flexibility of the hours-of-work clause to adjust production as

needed. It would be cheaper to offer a bit of overtime when needed to a skeleton crew than '

to carry a bloat'd crew on payroll whch was underemployed much of the time.

The second interesting element of Melsness' analysis of the work-week victory

relates to his definition of an "important political victory." This definition, also implicit in 4

many of Pritchett's published statements and present in most of the wage briefs prepared

by TURB, had become a standard part of the IWA's economic and political analysis.

Trade unions could most immediately further the interests of the working class, this line

went, not by sharpening the contradictions inherent in capitalism and precipitating an

economic collapse. The experience of the last depression had been too devastating to 'the

working class, and the gains made by communist parties in North ~ m e r i c a insignificant.

The relative prosperity of h e war years had brought much greater success in mobilizing

and organizing workers. An incipient Browderism-not to mention ~eynesianism-still

lurked within the hearts of most communist indusmal unionists in British Columbia, in

spite o f h e new political militancy of the post-war period, and the longer-tern goal of

defeating American imperialism and monopoly capitalism. For Pritchett and Melsness, the

welfare of the industry and of the economy in general depended

employment and greater purchasing power to avoid a crisis inherent in production for

profit. Th'e true business unionists of the 1930s would simply take this prescription and

invert i t , bowing to the need for lower wages, longer hours and greater productivity to

sustain economic growth. While, no doubt, the ~ntchett/Melsne& line was a superior

"trade union" position, it was difficult to reconcile the general notion of a union framing its

economic and political analysis in terms of what was best for capitalist enterprise to

continue to expand unabated with the notion of "an important political victory." I\

The editor of the Vancouver Sun perspicQously penetrated through the militant and

defiant politiial stance adopted by the IWA prior to its strike vote and in a laudatory

editorial provided the kiss of death to any hopes the woodworkers' u ~ i o n had of leading

the crusade against the ICA Act (1947). The lumber industry, the editorial praised, had

established the principle after nine long weeks of bargaining, that strikes settle nothing.

"Labour and cepital are a b e d that unintempted production is essential to a high standard

of living," the editorial proclaimed. "Full and harmonious cooperation is required on >

both sides. The road to industrial peace will not be easy ...y et the sign posts are now in

place," the Sun predicted. "The IWA and the logging operators have marked it well.

%'here they have travelled othe~s will be expected tp aavel.'%

Corning just before a mass protest rally at Vancouvq's Exhibition Gardens planned

to launch the fight against the ICA Act (1947) into the broader public arena, this praise

from the capitalist press pointed to one very harsh reality-the l a res t , most important

union in the province had now capitulated and complied, & faem, with the Act. District

leaders such as Melsness and hitchett claimed that the IWA had circumvented application

of the ICA Act (1947). Melsness went so far as to claim that "it is quite apparent that the . .

Coalition Government in Victoria was not prepared for an all out fight with labor, led by

the W A , at this particular time.'93' But clearly the IWA had not violated the Act with its

strike vote, and, by continuing negotiations under a government conciliator, had indicated

its willingness 10 comply. The union needed a strong and united membership in'favour of

stnking in violation of the Act, and that it did not have. If the provincial government was

not 'prepared for an all-out-fight, neither were the woodworkers. A solid majority of the

rank-and-file would possibly, in due course, have voted to take on the industry in a legal

strike oveg contract demands alone. By tying its early strike vote to the anti-Bill 39

campaign, the District Negotiating Committee preempted that possibility and found itself,

with a weak mandate, unable either to pursue its own economic struggle to fulfillment, or

to lend its decisive weight to the larger political struggle.

The Vancouver rally against the ICA Act (1947), which had been postponed to 20

July, attracted at most 1200 "Vancouver citizens," most of whom were probably BCFL

officials and union representatives. There was more talk of a one-day general smke, and

several more TLC unions broke'ranks with their central, throwing their support to the

laundry workers.g4 But with the kingpin in the BCFL campaign, the IWA, buckling under

to the Act, the anti-Bill 39 movement lacked real ctout. The only direct challenges to the

Act involving illegal strikes were not of sufficient economic importance to pose a real

political threat to the Coalition g ~ v e r n m e n t . ~ ~ After charges were filed against 114

steelworkers for striking illegally, and with his union for the most part out of the direct

action, Pntchett took a leave of absence as District president to lead the Federation's anti-

Bill 39 campaign, notjng somewhat cryptically that the IWA could no longer continue to

exist unless the ICA Act (1947) were +ped out.96 In mid-September the Federation tried

to re-launch its campaign at a meeting of 150 delegates presided over by Harvey Murphy,

with Pritchett giving the main report. Ever searching for the dusive pq.ular coalition of

19 forces, a new demand emerged from the labour central for a siecial fall session of the . . legislature jo amend the ICA Act (1947) and adjust school taxes according to the demands c of the fanners 7 and rural p ~ p u l a t i o n . ~ ~ The CCF was notably cool to any parliamentary

advice from the Federation and its LPP leaders.98 .r

4 -.

In the absence 6f any substantial challenge, the government was able to limit public , ,

debate to the "cumbersome mechanics" of the ICA Act (1947), its enforceability and

possible infringement on the jurisdiction of the courts. The court decision in both the .'

laundry and steelworkers cases had raised serious concerns with these aspects of the

statute.99 With the appointment on 16 October of Attorney-General Gordon Wismer as the

new labour minister, the government hoped to clear up some of these mechanical and legal

difficulties and deflect some of the concerns being raised by the reform wing of the Liberal

party that the labour act adhere more closely to "liberal, democratic and equitable

principles" and be made more efccient in its application.100 Toward that end, Wismer

declared his intention to appoint a Labour Relations Board as provided by the Act and

invited nominees from the BCFL.lol The Federation declined the invitation until charges

against the steelworkers were dropped, and a moratorium on funhef prosecutions was

declared.lo2 After investigating the case against the steelworkers, at the beginning of

November, Wismer surprisingly announced the'dropping of all charges as well as his

intention to amend the Act to remove its "ponderous and unnecessary machinery." Until

that was done, no more charges would be laid against individual strikers, though unions

and officers would dontinue to be liable.lm

Wismer's assurances in hand, Pntchett announced on behalf of the BCFL executive

its intention to submit the names of himself, Murphy and Alex Mackenzie as nominees to

, - , -314- . >

- f t.

the new Board.lM With this decision, tde labour movement lefi its fate regarding the ICA CJ

Act (1947) in the hands of the Coalition government, jusi then restructuring its leadershi6

after the resignation of Premier Hart. Labur relations policy would be a key issue around

which the revampewoalition under business-minded "BossfZ; Johnson would define its i"i

new political e.

Only a major economic struggle led by the 30,000 woodworkers in the pro&ce t, -.

might have been able to challenge and expose the basic intent and underlying anti-labour.

principles of the ICA Act (1947). Because they were small, the laundry and steelworker - @

cases obscured the real issues involved in the fight against the Act, leading to calls from

within the Liberal party, the judiciary and the liberal press for reform of the Act's e

ma6hiner-y. IWA compliance and the Federation's willingness to participate on the new

LRB, only reinforced the notion that the hurriedly-produced ICA Act (1947) could stand up f i P

against any future challenges from organized labour with only 'some minor tinkering. T h e

stage was set for organized capital in the province to proceed with the ~ernaining points of - - .

its anti-union agenda. Nineteen forty-eight would be a critical year not only for the IWA,

but for the whole labour movement in British Columbia. , .

Chapter Ten

\ In Chapter Six we explored briefly how shifts in the broader global political-

economy influenced left-wing politics in - NortJ~ America and provided a context for a more

militant'trade union posture during 1946. Ninereen forty-seven brought the intensification

of these processes: a full-blown "cold war" and massive assault on trade union and civil .

rights from rightward-shifting governments across the continent. By the spring of 1948, . these developments had prpduced a general crisis throughout the industrial union

movement. As labour centri$ and industrial unions in general struggled to maintain their

hard-won legitimacy, communist trade union leaders scrambled to adopt strategies that

would allow them to reconcile increasingly conflicting political and industrial relations

agendas. The tumultuous events in the woodworking industry of British Columbia during

1948 form part of this larger history of capital-labour and geo-political restructuring.

On 12 March 1947, President Harry Truman announced that his administration hade B

adopted a policy of assisting other nations, most immediately Greece and Turkey, that

might be threatened by communism. This so-called "Truman Doctrine" was quickly

backed up by congressional approval of $400 million in aid. At about the same time; the

United States withdrew from UNRRA for fear that money distributed by that agency was

helping the cause of communism in Europe. Ln place of American support of UNRRA, on

5 June 1947, Secretary of State Marshall announced a plan to assist any European

P " government willing to participate in the task of recovery. Innocuous enough in itself, this -- scheme (which soon became known as the Marshall Plan), taken together with Truman's

"doctrine," and the policy of Soviet "containment" outlined by George Kennan in J&y, . would soon emerge as a full-blown attempt to assert American economic hegemony over

western Europe in order to halt the spread of communism amongst its war-tom peop1es.l c 4

By the summer of 1937, the powerful communist parties in France, Italy and Belgium had

Jost their positions in coalition governments, knocking the steam out of Stdinhmhnpts to ' I

reestablish a united froni policy'after the disintegration of the wartime alliance.2 ' -

In response to these significant events in the capitalist camp, in late September

1947, the co'mmunist parties from eight European nations and the Soviet Union gathered in

- Poland to found the Corninform (the Information Bureau of Communist and Workers

Parties), a more nationalist-oriented successor to the Cornintern that had been sorapped

during the war. In a keynote address to the foundiog conference, Andrei Zhdanov, chief

Soviet ideologist, reintroduced into the communist lexicon Lenin's "two-cainp thesis" of - the 1920s, "just as the Truman Doctrine speech had divided the world into forces of good

0

and evil from the American perspective some months earlier."3 Cominform strategy,

designed to counter United States imperialism and threats to the USSR, called on member

parties, and by extension all national parties, to build popular anti-imperialist coalitions of

progressive forces within each country and "assume the role of defender of its country's

independence against the encroachments of the United state^."^ - The impact of these developments on the American and Canadian communist parties

was electrifying. As was shown in chapter six, Foster and Buck had anticipated Stalin's

change in direction in policy statements and strategies adopted over a year earlier. This was

particularly true of the Canadian leader who had sounded the alarm as early as April 1946 r

against the Anglo-American threat to Canada's economic and national sovereignty, calling

for a broad people's movement in response. Now, with the official approval of.Stalin,

both parties moved ahead full throttle. - Starobin argues that it was the founding of the

Cominform above all that reassured Foster in his thinking and pushed him in the direction 8

of breakirig with the labour-Democratic coalition and towards the formation of a third party

movement.5 Prior to that the American leader had hesitated, as both communists and

liberal-centrists in the CIO shied away from an outright confrontation on fbreign policy,

and the Congress leadership maintained staunch opposition to Taft-Haftley. B y a t o b e r ,

however, the CIO convention had endorsed the basic principles of, if not the political intent

behind, the Marshall Plan. As more unions moved toward compliance with Taft-Hartley

under threat of being denied access to the NLRB machinery, the CIO dropped its hard civil

liberties stance on the issue of the non-communist affidavits, leaving it to member unions to

decide. As a political confrontation in the all-important labour movement grew imminent,

Foster decided to risk a rupture within the CIO by backing a third-party, Henry Wallace .

. candidacy for ~nited'states president against the traditional party of labour, the Dkmocrats,

now moving to the right under Truman. CPUSA leaders, according to Starobin, "saw in 6 4

the Corninform's existence and in Zhdanov's advice not to underestimate the capaky of the I

working class for struggle against imperialism, all the inaedients of a critique of their

hesitation and a signal to go all out."6

In Canada, the LPP moved equally rapmy to consolidate its defensive position with

regard to American imperialism, and adopt strategies toward building a brdad popular third-

party opposition, complicated somewhat by the communists' uneasy relationship with the

CCF.' In early October,LPP spokesmen in British Columbia were still slamming the CCF

for failing to support fully the struggle against the ICA Act (1947).~ With the

announcement of the two-camp Corninform line, the LPP, too, shifted gears. 1

Objective cohditions in the post-war Canadian economy fesulted in the adoption of

federal trade and currency policies that fed the flames of a new-found nationalism amongst e a

Canadian communists. With the breakdown of Canada's Anglo-American trade balancing

act, sustained during the war by participation in Lend-Lease, the Canadian economy

experienced diminishing US dollar reserves during a period of intensified consumer.

demand for American manufactured g a . Mackenzie Kin , in talks with Truman in April B *

1947, pushed for greater exports of Canadian raw materials, especially minerals, to the

United States.* Moreover, the Canaman government, less for ideological, reasons than

from the sheer economic necessity of righting its trade and currency i edances , favoured

rapid implementation of the European Recovery Plan (Marshall Plan) with Canadian . c,

inclusion as asupplier of goods, particularly raw materials and foodstuffs. As a stop-gap

* measure, in order to stem the outward flow of dollars, Finance Minister Douglas Ab%tt, in '

t.

November 1947, announced h e imppsition of strict currency controls and import quotas. - This plan was designed not only#to stop the deplehon df US dollar,reserves, but also to ' draw American attention to Canada's plight. If was to serve as a bargaining ploy toward

9

.the achievement of the longer term objectives of increased Canadian exports to United

\ States and ~uro~ean'rnarkets thro"gh some sort of US-Canada trade k a t y and Canadian.

- pagicipation in the Marshall Plan. As boosters of Marshall Plan aid, Canadian leaders Y

_-"

would fmd it in their interests to follow the American lead, engaging in the appropriate anti- *'

," a Soviet rhetoric required to mobilize public and, in the American case, congressional

' a . " %

support, for the reco~er~'~ro~rarnrne.

The general thrust of Canadian policy was clear to the LPP. Participation in a new ' D

aggressive American economic imperialism as summarized in the so-called "Abbott Plan,"

according to Tim Buck, meant, in the short term, sharp increases in the cost of living, a

drastic drop in real wages, and high unemployment. Eventually, the Abbott Plan would un

lead to a decline of anufacturing; a narrowing of Canada's foreign trade and a

"strengthening trend toward economic colonization of this country by United States '

monopoly capital."9 In several long articles in the communist press, Buck outlined his

critique of Canadian economic policy. His alternave strategy was to link true Canadian

economic development, including manufacturing, to trade with the emerging sociali';

economies of the "New Democracies" in ~ G o ~ e , thesoviet Union and the "emergent new

people's republics in Asia." Against the proposals of American financecapital that Canada " / *

,become an industrial hinterland of the United States, Buck countered, "let the people of

Canada be aroused to fight to make Canada industrially self-sufficient, nationally

independerrt, and a partner with the nations who are building a new type of economy in a. B

very large part of the wbrld."1•‹ Provincial communist leaders echoed Buck's refrain.,

Harvey Murphy predicted a new wave of price increases under the ~ b $ n Plan wiping out

all the post-war wage increases won by workers. Provincial LPP leader Nigel Morgan

accused the King government of "cowardly betrayal of the people's interest," and claimed ,

\ t \

that its adoption of the Tory line of price decontrol would +t purchasing power in half.ll

The LPP's "new National Policy" was report to a Toronto

meeting of the party's national cbrnrnittee in the title "Keep

Canada Independent." The Abbott Plan, according to this represented "an abject

surrender to u.'s. monopoly capital," putting the King in essential agreement a

with the Tory camp. In seeking support from "the big business Liberals had '

betrayed their "sol& wartime pledges,'' :'torpedoed price ,/

to the war-chariot of wall-street, bent on stopping the 0

Europe and of liberation struggles in the colonial

reaction under American leadership bad completely "changed world relati ships, changed ? the conditions of democratic progress and, therefore, has changed the co

I

determine the policies of the labour movement in Canada as in every ot er capitdist !- country." Continued progress could be sustained only through the broad pop\lar unity of I

\ democratic forces. For the LPP in Canada that meant in the event of federal orprovincial

I

elections during 1948 all progressive people were to support CCF candidates j n every 7

constituency without LPP nominees, and the number of LPP candidates would be '

deliberately limited in each province. Nevertheless, precisely because they were now

calling for the election of a CCF government, communists would, all the more, have to

"sharpen our principled criticismof social-demoqatic p o l i c i e ~ . " ~ ~ As Penner caustically

remarks, however, this principled criticism would quickly hecome "the dominant theme in , -

the LPP's approach to the CCF."13 - ,

. - Both the LPP and the ~ P U S A had moved to'sever' populaf Support from

Democratic-Liberal parties now aligned with the intkrestsof US imperialism. he CPUSA. ,

. , looked for the bearer of the Rooseveltian New Deal torch, and found him in the person of

4 r '

Roosevelt's vice-president Wallace, who declared his intention to run for president bn a ,

Progressive pmy ticket on 29 ~ e c e m b e r 1947.14 The LPP, by the same logic of analysis, 6

looked to the ready-made third-party alternative, the CCF, as the nucleus for a coalition of

popular forces that 'would include the party of communists. That neither the CCF nor

Wallace were particularly anxious to be identified with communist support pwas irrelevant to

Party calculations in 1947 and 1948.15

Foster got only cool from communist trade unionists, hesitant in the 0

atmosphere generated after to push their unions into anaped break with 2 t.

Truman (their only hope for eventual r L- peal) and with CIO political policy. Philip Murray, 4

I nevertheless, took this apparent communist effort to destroy the Democratic party as his cue d

to make his long-awaited mot-e against communists in the C10.16 In theCanadian political

. context, of course, support by communist trade unionists of the CCF would not entail a

break with the mainstream of the labour movement. But a growing rift in the British

Columbia District of the IWA, and in the CCL in genexal, was exacerbated by the

importation into Canada of the .CIO's debates over Taft Hartley and the Marshall Plan. For

their part, the LPP-led unions aided their opponents by blurring important distinctions

between the Abbott and Marshall plans, between Taft-Hartley and the ICA Act (1947), and

between the CIO and the CCL leaderships. In this &spect they failed in their own mission

to "keep 'Canada independent."

In July 1947, the IWA's left-leaning International Executive Board, in adherence to

a general CIO policy at that time, announced its refusal to comply with the Taft-Hartley I

affidavit. In reality, the IWA, in an ongoing battle with the AFL in the pacific northwest,

was not in a position to rely on militant rank-and-file support in place of pafticipation in

elections supervised by theUNationa1 ~ a b o r Relations Board (NLRB).17 The Executive

Board soon reconsidered its position: In accordance with a ruling of the CIO Executive

Board to leave the question of compliance up to individual unions, it forwarded to the

- union's annual August convention in St. Louis, a resolution calling for compliance with the

Taft-Hartley law in order "to save certain sections of our organization."I8

The political &visions in the IWA executive were reflected in the resolution's

wording. It noted that the NLRB, under Taft-Hartley, would not serve labour's interests to

the degree it had in the past. The union would comply with NLRB certifkation provisions

by using the Board only when necessary: "In some instances, perhaps, we may be able to

strike the employers for recognition, and in other cases we might feel it is suicide to strike

for recognition."lg But regardless of the compromis~wording, the political impact on the

International Board would be the same. Its commbnist members would have to sign

affidavits or resign. Thus, when the issue came to the floor of the 1947 International

convention, i t barely passed on a straight right-left split. (The margin of victory for the

right may have been not more than that provided by the intervention of the United States

Department of ~mmigration in preventing those District One delegates identified as

communists from attending. Jack Greenall, Internationil Trustee, who had entered the

country earlier in preparation for the convention, was the only known Canadian communist

to attend.)*O Greenall, i n 1965, would claim that Karly Larsen himself engineered passage

of the resolutioq through the convention by stifling any challenge from the left on the floor

of the convention. According to Greenall's account, Larsen had already made his deal with

the International Board, signed the affidavit, and soon after resigned in order to conceal his_

compliance from his home district. His subsequent reelection as president of District Two

(northern Washington) only confirmed his earlier compliance. This more recent rendition

of events is supported by Greenall's statement to the 1948 District conventian in January.

Then he claimed that delegates tosthe St. Louis convention had not been made aware of

what the issues were. When a motion was made to defer action until after the CIO

convention, i t was defeated, with the International officers opposing.21 C

Lembcke and Tattum do not question Larsen's integrity at the International

Convention, though they do accept that he signed the affidavit upon reelection to the

presidency of his district. There is even some question as to whether ~ a r s e n was still a

CPUSA member in 1937.22 If he were not, his resignation from the executive Board

might have been intended to conceal the fact that he had quit the party. W e n is, no doubt,

a shadowy but interesting figure in all of these events. His role in the Dismot One strike of

1946 was less than solid (see chapter seven'above). Early in 1948, his alliance with

Pritchett and District One leaders would help mislead the British Columbians into

precipitate action against the International president, opening the door to a full-scale anti-

communist assault on the D i s t r i c ~ ~ ~

At any rate, if Karly Larsen had works out his own separate peace +with the white

bloc, he and Fadling did a good job of concealing it. On 16 and 18 September, Fadling

wrote to Larsen and Ed Laux demanding that they sign Taft-Hartley affidavits in

accordance with the decision of the convention, or resign from the executive. Lameds and I Law's joint letter of resignatio0,printed irr full in the J3.C. Lumber Worker, appropriately

denounced compliance with Taft-Hartley as meaning the destruction,of industrial unionism

in the lumber industry.a At the beginning of October, NLRB Chairman Rokrt Denham

ruled that top CIO leaders need not file oaths, but W e a d e r s of constituent unions and

locals would have to in order to obtain use of NLRB ma~hinery.2~ With 31 October set as

the time limit for IWA compliance to prevent dismissal+of all its cases, the necessary

executive affidavits were filed, excluding the International trustees, who, though

technically full executive board members, were not regarded as such by the union.

Denham demanded the mstees sign as well, and, on 8 October, Greenall was asked by

acting-President Botkin to comply.

Greenall based his refusal to comply on the principle that "a government to which I

owe no allegiance, in a country where I haven't a vote, has no right to tell me or any other

Canadian what political p c i p l e s must be endorsed or rejeeted." He also refused" to resign

and betray the confidence of the IWA members w,ho voted for him two years before.

"Even a moron" could see, he wrote Fadlin'g, that d i e gains you hope to make as a result

of capitulating to the NLRB will be more than offset by weakened morale within the

Union." He gave Fadling his sympathy but not his endor~ation.~6 Fadling claimed he

protested against the forcing of a Canadian citizen to sign, and requested Denham's ' '

interpretation on the matter. Denham ruled that all International officers named in the union

constitution must sign. On 25 October, Fading wrote to Greenall suspending him from

office. Four days later Greenall replied expresging doubt that he would appeal the ruling, '

and giving his appreciation for Fadling's protest on his behalf.27 Rae Eddie, a member of

the New Westminster executive; and soon-to-be elected CCF provincial member, was

appointed by Fadling to replace Greenall.=

For the time being the matter was laid to rest, though there was some debate as to -

Fadling's authority to suspend an executive member without going through due process in

accordance with the union's constitution. Taft-Hartley had only just begun its intrusion

into the affairs of Canadian labour. That piece of legislation and the Greenall affair

virtually assured that Ernie Dalskog, nominated at the St. Louis convention for first vice-

president would never be elected. Dalskog, and District Two's Walter Belka, running on

the leftist slate for secretary-treasurer, were subsequently defeated in referendum balloting

by right-wing stalwarts A1 Hartung and Carl Winn. Together with Fadling and second

vice-president Botlun, both reelected by acclamation, they would compose a sdid anti-

communist front at the IWA office in Portland. District One's two year honeymoon with

the International Board was at an end.29 <

At the same time that District One had its first direct encounter with "Taft-

Hartleyism" (the ICA Act (1947) notwithstanding) through its official organ, the B,Ct

Lumber Worker, it took up the sword against support for the Marshall Plan within the

CCL. In a feature article coyering the CCL 1947 convention, the paper took the Congress

executive to task for its resolution which put the "seal of approval on American foreign

policy, endorsed the Marshall Plan for blackmailing Europe with Wall Street .dollars,

approved the Mackenzie King government's subservience to the American state

department.. .then echoes the chorus of hate being whipped up by American big business

against the Soviet Union." The CCL executive had, in the opinion of District One, "wasted

three and one-half days advancing a programme whose central theme was red-baiting," and

"rigged" the convention l o win iti stipport. On 28 October the CCL executive demanded a

complete retraction, and when this failed to materialize, on 13 March charges were laid .

against the District. On 17 November Dalskog apologized on the front page of the union

paper, but offered no retraction. After further threats, a full retraction was printed on 15

D e ~ e r n b e r . ~ ~

In offering its principledcriticism of the CCL in October, District One could find s

some support in the fact that neither its parent union nor the CIO had as yet wholeheartedly

endorsed the Marshall Plan - and Truman foreign policy. Within a month of the retracti~n, .

the CIO Executive Board had taken its first steps against the Wallace third-party candidacy. \,

The IWA would soon~follow suit. The District quickly found itself censured by the new ,

International Board for interfering in areas of union policy that were the s01e'~reio~ative of 3

the Ir~ternational.~~

When District One gathered in convention in Januiry, foreign policy was featured

first and foremost in the officers' report to the delegates. A full and lengthy exposition of

the LPP's line on the Marshall/Abbott plans was advanced, including predictions of mass

unemployment as Canadian industry was restructured to fit American requirements.. 'The

recent spat with the CCL was reviewed. The union's apology and retraction, the officers

explained, were given in recognition of the urgent need for the IWA to "stay within the

confines of the trade union movement and play its part in the general struggles of the

working class Of Canada," and of the worlk A resolution on Canadian foreign policy, in

an elaborate preamble, linked the "Abbott Austerity Plan" to the LLreactionary" Marshall ,

Plan's attempts to impose American econom,ic dominance over Europe. The ICA Act

(1947) and Taft-Hartley were but the domestic counterparts to the .American aim of

smashing democratic workers' governments wherever they had been established. The I

convention called upon Canada to abandon support of the ~ a r s h a l l / ~ l a n and adopt a

foreign policy based on peace and friendship with "democratic countries" in the-interests of

maintaining Canadian indust at high levels of production and

employment.32 -

The priority, given these issues by the officers was reflected in much of the debate

that dominated the three-@y convention over resolution number 3 1. This resolution gave

support to District Two in its initiation of a referendum recall of International President. . Fadling for setting aside the constihltion in his suspension of Jack G x ~ e n a l l . ~ ~ Even before

the resolution hit the floor, Fadling had provided, in his main speech to the convention, a

lengthy justification for the suspension (see above this chapter). But he had cleverly been

placed on the agenda just ahead of Harvey Murphy who laqbasted the IWA for being

among the fmt to accede to Taft-Hartley, thereby weakening the general struggle against it.?. I

Similarly, Murphy pointed out, "Yours was the first Union that had its officers plugged at.

the American boarder. Today we,can't get across neither." Murphy went on:

It is a bad day when a bumM of us cannot attend the International Conventions and the Executive Board Meetings of the Unions we built. That is going to mean something to Canadian workeis because we are not , getting our rights, and we are not getting our say, and we are not getting our influence.. .If those delegates going across to your Convention hadn't been plugged by the American Immigration, perhaps the Conventiqn wouldn't have voted to sign those a f f i d a ~ i t s . ~ ~

No sooner had Murphy sat down than Larsen popped up and gave a rambling

~~~~~~~~~~~~~on the Marshall Plan, the Wallace candidacy, Taft-Hartley and Dismct One's

recent fight with the CCL, as a preamble yo his call for support of the Fadling recall

petition. Northern Washington District Council, always a "left-wing s t r o n g h ~ l d , " ~ ~ had

already pulled out of industry-wide negotiations on the grounds that the Northwest

Regional ~ e ~ o t i a t i n ~ Committee had endorsed T a f t - H ~ t l e y . 3 ~ The recall move was

District Two's next step in its retaliatory action against the International for dumping their

leader, Larsen.

The debate on the recall motion was long and arduous. It comprises fully 34 pages

of the transcript of the proceedings. Greenall, a visitor to the convention (not a delegate),

was granted the right to speak at the very end of the debate. ' ~ e read to the delegates his ,

eloquent response to Fadling expressing his views on Taft-Hartley. He expliiidy pfused

to take a position on the resolution itself, however, partly because he was the central figure

in the dispute, but as well because he likely disagreed with the issue being brought to the

floor of the convention at all. In 1965 Greenall would claim that the D i s ~ c t Executive

foolishly advanced this controversial recall proposal, which had no chance of ultimate " b

success, in an effort to mask its lack of a real programme to offer the mem&rship for

5 1948.37 There is an element of truth in Greenall's analysis. More precise'ly, Distiict

leaders were trying to reconstitute their position in the eyes of the rank-and-file, and the

labcpr movement in general, as militant, fighting trade union leaders. Their leadership had

sustained considerable damage during 1947 as a result of the weak strike vote qnd

subsequent capitulation in negotiations under t& rule of the ICA Act (1947). By signing -,

on to District Two's recall, they could at one and the same time retaliate against Fadling for

his similar compliance with Taft-Hartley, and against his white bloc allies in New

Westminster for their refusal to go along with District Policy during negotiations. Ta this

extent, then, Greenall7.s assessment was correct. With a similar scenario likely to unfold

during industry negotiations in 1948 as in 1947,*and for as long as the white bloc held

sway over the sawmill workers, the immediate task at hand was indeed to deal with internal

union politics as a prerequisite to regaining any real momentum on the collective bargaining

front.

A most interesting exchange between George Mitchell and Pritchett, during debate n

on the recall resolution, illustrates well the predicament of the District officers. Speaking

against the resolution, Mitchell condemned the District leaders and the delegates for wasting

time with a recall referendum when the urgent task was to put into effect the "slogans

around this hall-'No More Exception of 40-Hour Week.'. . . 'Next in 1948 the Union

Shop in Lumber."' If the union were serious about these gains, exclaimed Mitchell, "we

are not going to have rn* push ballot boxes around in the next few

Pritchett, in the course qf his iong or our of t&e resolution, answered-Mitchell's 3

challenge. The matter of compliance couldhot be brushed aside by "pointing to the slogans

on the wall and saying that we are wasting c h time b d wasgng money.. ." If the union .

% allowed itself to fall into the trap of comglian~e h t h reactionary bil e Taft-Hartley,

+ "those slogans around the wall will never be realized.. .and diey are not worth the paper

" - 4

they are written on unless we fight for ourjcivil rights."39

Pritchett was about to go on to answer Alsbury's a a r g e that the Disiict had already = .

defied the majority will of the CCL convention and been farced to retract, yet wiis now

again about to deny the majp-ity will of the International convention. Mitchell, obviously $

a flustered, interrupted on a point of order:

'9

I want to know if District No. 1 haven't complied with Bill 39 under the sections of the certification, and if we haven't complied and used the Bill to charge bosses with unfair labor practices, and isn't it.,true that the British .

Columbia Federation under Bro. Pritchen's leadershi~%~i~ecret;uy- that he '

has taken nomination to help administer the Board under Bill 39.40

Pritchett unruffled, then proceeded to answer both Alsbury's and Mitchell's accusations

with the same point:

. As I was saying, there are officers and members of District 1 in Convention that have disagreed with certain proposals that came before these conventions--disagreed violently-but the majority carried, and those officers went out and continued to disagree even to the extent of defeating a smke vote when a stnke vote was ordered by a

F

- . The implication was clear with respect to Mitchell's charge. If Pritchett and the

BCFL had been forced to comply with the provisions and participate in the administration

of the Act, local 1-357 was largely to blame for its role in weakening the woodworkers'

bargaining position in the midst of the broader struggle against the legislation. The Fadling

recall referendum, though unlLkely to succeed, pould hopefully consolidate the rank-and-

file around the civil rights issue, and be a step toward rooting out the right-wing opposition

and restoring Dismct One to a position of strength in negotiations. If the Pritchett-Dalskog #

executive could not do that, then their right to continue to lead the District would clearly be

' .. 1328-

-

open to challenge. If, in practice, they could perform no differently as bargaining agents

than any other compliant union leadership, there might be g d reason to replace them \

. given the current anti-communism that was overtaking the labour movement; and

' particularly if a non-communist provisa found its way into the ICA Act during the next

round of amendment^.^* But, ironically, the District leaders' ability to r d y the rank-and-

file behind its political programme had been seriously undermined by their participation D s

over the' previous eight years in thi same processes of institutionalization and

accommodation to a legalistic industrial relations system that had led to Fadling's

compliance with Taft-Hartley. A strategy of organizing around signed agreements and

consolidating industry-wide bargaining'through the use of state structures had loosened the .

District Executive's natural linkages with the rank-and-file and weakened plant and sub- . '

local organization." Moreover, the Dismct executive's confusion over the correct strategy to

pursue during the 1946 strike in response to a rapidly shifting political and industrial

relations context had done much to pave the way for the white bloc seizure of the New

westminster local, now posing such a threat to their hold on office. Regardless of its fine

theoretical logic, the plan to make the recall resolution the centre-piece of the convention

agenda, apparently hatched jointly by Larsen, Murphy and Pntchett, was poorly conceived.

It ignored the problematic relationship with the rank-and-file, and laid the Dismct leaders

open t o those very damaging charges of disruption that Mitchell had raised.

The resolution in support of District Two passed the convention with only New

Westrninster and Kamloops locals, and two stray Victoria delegates, voting against it.43

Fadling and George Brown bok it as their signal to begin a major offensive., with aid from .

the local press and radio, against a District leadership soon up for reelection. The

Vancouver Sun kicked off the campaign with an editorial immediately following the

convention entitled "Whither the Woodworkers?" In it, District leaders were harshly 7

criticized for their stand on the Marshall Plan, the Abbott program and lntemational

compliance with Taft-Hartley, and for trying to lead their members out of the'rnainstream of

the North American labour movement "on the road'that leads to Mo~cow. '~ The editor

concluded, "In the next week or two, as the election of officers for the union proceeds &

B.C. sawmills and camps, the actual dues payers will have a chance to. show whether they

realize where they are being led-and 3

On 13 January, the on its editorial page, ran the full text of Pritchett's

response, together with its own criticism of it. The "road to Moscow" issue, Pritchett

began, was wholly false. The District position was squarely in line with the majority of

people as evidenced by a Gallop poll showing 63 percent favoured aid to Europe being

given through the United Nations. That was also t& position, Pritchett noted, of CIO

leader Philip Murray. Lifting a section directly out of Buck's December article on the

Abbott Plan in National Affairs Monthlv, Pritchett explained that even the Wbaley-Eaton

. Business Advice Service agreed that thk Abhott programme aimed at closer integration of

the danadian with the American economy, primarily as a source of raw materials. In

addition, the IWA International, Pritchett argued, while in favour of obtaining certification <*

through the NLRB, was still on record as being against the Taft-Hartley bill in principle, as

were 1 1 powerful CIO unions, and the CIO executive.45

In the struggle for the hearts and minds of the woodworker rank-and-file now

underway, it was very important to Pntchett that his District, in standing up for trade union

and democratic rights at home and abroad, not be seen as out of step with mainstream

thought. I t was equally important for the other side, which by now con~isted of an

informal alliance of International officers, local white bloc members, the press, employers

and government officials, to portray the District leaders as agents of a foreign power with

objectives at odds with the needs of ordinary workers in a democratic and free country. a

Through January the campaign against'the District One leadership built. On 21

January, in an advertisement in the still strike-bound Province newspaper, the International

announced a new radio programme to be broadcast each Monday evening over station

W R . entitled. "The Voice of the International Woodworkers of Ameri~a. '"~ On the 26

January broadcast, First Vice-President A1 Hartung offered his interpretation of the

Greenall affair. This disruptive tactic was designed, voiced Hartung, to keep the workers'

minds distracted during negotiations. "It could be that Joe Stalin feels it ,would hurt his

cause if the workers received more wages and better working conditions," baited Hartung.

He warned workers not to be distracted by a "phoney petition" from the cen4al.issues pf -

wages, hours and conditions. That was the lesson to be l e ~ e d frcm the example of New -

Westminster the radio broadcast eon tinued. There, an enlightened membership had

replaced the "fair-haired boys" of the District Council "with men from the plant who were

interested in gaining wages, houls and working conditions." Since then, 1-357 had

doubled its membership; cleaned up its financial mess and paid off its smkekbts , solely

due to the policies of the men recently nominated for District president and secretary,

Alsbury and Mitchell.47

Stuart Research Service broadcaster Bob Morrison got into the act, boosting the

whlie bloc slate in his weekly radio programme. In his 8 January broadcast, Morrison read

the Vancouver editorial, "Whither the Wpodworkers?", quoted George Brown's

cri=icism of District One's foreign policy resolution, and agreed with G e ~ r g e Mitchell's

hope that internal dissension in the IWA "over matters far removed from the field of

collective bargaining will not be reflected in the relations between the operators and the

bargaining agents of the employees.'48 Similar support came from Thomas Braidwood,.

past-president of the Vancouver Board of Trade, the ubiquitous Walter Owen, K.C.,-and -- - -

the Vancouver Province in a series of prominent articles.49

In the midst of the anti-communist campaign, District leaders did not back away

from the issues which were proving so controversial. At the end of January, the "District"

canQdate for secretary-treasurer, Jack Forbes, penned a lefigthy diambe for the Lumbw

Worker entitled "The Marshall Plan-A Weapon of S l a ~ e r ~ . " 5 ~ Pritchett took to the

airwaves over CKWX on 11 February, blasting the "boss lumbermen" for meddling in

District elections, and excoriating the local white bloc and International leaders for playing

along. He ended his talk with the regrettable news that the union's pmhctions concerning

the impact of the "Abboh Austerity Plan" were actually being realized. News from the UE

in Ontario and the Steelworkers in Vancouver ind icab that 1ayoffs.were already underway

as a result of the diversion of raw materials for processing in theUnited States. He warned

that British Columbia sawmill workers would be next in line with the inevitable opening up

of raw log exports across the border.51

With the International office now firmly back in the white bloc camp, George -

Brown's campaign against the District's interior organizers was renewed. Following the

District convention in January, Tommy MacDonald and Les Urquhart in Kelowna, and * .

Mike Freylinger, organizing in Prince George, were removed from office for supposing

the recall resolution and voting against compliance with the Taft-Hartley Act and against the

Marshall Plan. These firings were upheld in April by a CIO investigating committee

headed by the notorious American anti-communist, Adolph Germer. In the interim Germer

steered a motion for full support of the Marshall Plan past the opposition of "progressive"

board member Ilmar Koivunen at the Lntemational E x e ~ u t i v e . ~ ~

By the end of February, the anti-red campaign in British Columbia was in full

swing, with local 1-357 charging that over $9000 was not accounted for in the District's

accounts for 1946-47. On 15 March the District Executive ordered an independent audit of

the 1946-47 accounts to counter the charges.53 The New Westminster leaders had learned

from local experience what political benefits could accme over the issue of sloppy financial

management, and decided to raise it at the District level during their bid for executive office. q

The issue would reemerge in April and drag on through yet another offjcial investigation

into the summer of 1948, complicating the en tire negotiation process.54 Its immediate

effect, however, was to help erode support for the ~ i i t r i c t slate in the referendum election

then underway. As noted above, Dalskog was elected over Alsbury with only 66 percent

of the total vote. While Pntchett far somewhat better against Whalen, Jack ~ o r b e i polled e4/ only 62 percent in beating George Mitchell in the election for ~ecretar~-treasurer .~~ In the

- -332- -

*

two important sawmill locals, the white Mof ~odtirfu@ &'held its support during January

and February elections. The local executive was e

while Lloyd Whalen polled a substantial 1048 votes in his bid for 1-2 17'dresident agnjnst

Vern Carlyle's 1 848.56 k @

The International-led attack against the British Columbia communists during the

early months of f948 was but a precursor of a generalACIO campaign to puige itself of I

Party influence. Once-again, as with Taft-Hartley compliance, the IWA was at the

b forefront. Philip Murray led the charge in mid-March by removing the powerful ILWU - chief, Harry Bridges, from his position as CIO regional director in northern California.

That move, Levenstein estimates, "West Coast anti-communists rightly regarded as a

clarion call for a wholesale offensive against the leftists."57 That same month, the Marshall P

~l ' an received formal approval from the US Congress as the ~c&omic Cooperation Act of

1948.58

,Harry Bridges had been a longstanding associate of Pritchett. As west coast

director he had helped bring the woodworkers into t h e - p . During the earlydays of the - -v b

IWA on the Pacific coast, ridges had worked closely with Pritchett, the" president of the 3

union, to consolidate the Canadian's position against the conservative Columbia River

opp~s i t i on .~~ As Len de Caux, a CIO publicist and organizer of the day, remembers them,

they were part of a new breed of leaders which had upset the "closed-door pattern" of the

old labour bureaucracy: "From the west, and from the, left, a handsome h r r y and a

hardnosed one: Harold Pritchett of Woodworkers, Harry Bridges of hng~horernen."~~)

Before 1940, when John L. Lewis restricted Bridges' activities to California to

accommodate the right wing of the IWA-CIO, the two,Hanys were able to ~ollaborate.~' t

About the same time, Pritchett was finally barred permanently from the United States.b2

Pritchett7s close association with the intense syndicalist, bridge^,^^ raises some interesting

speculations concerning Pritchett's own conception of the relationship between party and I

union, and industrial relations. Certainly the direction District One followed under

.. . I d .

'. -33'3- . , * -

2 ' lxRe~ 's Iczdcrkip zCzr the w x indicates he may have sympathized to some exten~with '5

. *

Bridges' conception of the union as a surrogate party.@

In February 1948, a state of Washington House Un-American Activities.Committee - 1 "

heard over 40 witnesses label Bridges, Pritchett and oiher top W A leaders as Communist . # '. " - >'' -

party members.65 Bedges' ouster by M w a y the following month was a powerful ',

reminder to Pritchett that a whole history of struggle to bring woodwoikkrs theobebenefits OF '

? . industrial unionism within the structures of the CIO and the Roosevelt was now '*

* at stake.

" 0

If the Longshoremen's union had been Pritchett's chief ally during his'stint as

Intemational president, the woodworkers' head now found his most solid-support do the '

t

left wing of the labour movement in Mine Mill and its chief, Harvey Murphy. By April '

1 P * - - < s .

-1948, Murphy, like Bridges, was under the gun of the anti-communists, in this case in the - L.

CCL. The events leading up to this confrontation are recounted by Abella. In the late fall -. of 1947, as a result of the Taft-Hartley restriction against communist involvement'&

American union's, the he Mill International sent several of its organizers who were%wty J

members into the Ontario gold mines. In February, Senator Robert Taft brought the issue -

to the attention of the Canadian government by referring to the exodus north of c o ~ u n i s t s

as a n indication of the success of the law h,e had sponsored. h he Mackenzie King 'A.

government, without any protest from the CCL, announced it would seek to restrict such

inmigration. Mine Mill ~nternational, with the reluctant support of Philip Murray,

protested against any such restriction on its Canadian operations, and sought further

support from CCL dfficials. The CCL brass,-anxious to.cJear the communists aut of Mine ,

Mill, refused to cooperate. Instead, they wrote M U ~ Y and all C10 affiliates explaining .

* 'k

rhei~~position i,n light af the 1947 convention condemnation of communism. Moreover, on

5 March, the CCL had, in timely fashion, submitted its annual memorandum to-the federal

government in which it praised Chadian military cooperation with the United States and , '

to

s&nngly endorsed the Marshall Plan. Abella claims that-the federal government, "taking its

1

cue hip the ~ongress '~osit ion," arrested ~ 'me r i& organizer Reid Robinson and held him

for .deportation on. charges bf advocating the violent overthrow of the Canadian

goveh&nt. This over-reaction . ~ put the somewhat embarrassed CCL leaders on the I

- - . defensive &d "gave the initiative back" to leftists'h Mine Mill such as Harvey Murphy.M

rT I ,

I , - Murphy bad already made an issue of the IWA and American immigration problems , I

, . : at ;he District, Qne conventibn. In mid- arch, jud as Mine Mill was fighting possible v . . . ,

* re&ctions from the Canadian side, the US i t t ~ r n e ~ - ~ e n e r a l reversed his recent decision c.

>

which: had,granted-an appeal from Dalskog, Melsncss and McCuish for entry into the

country. Once again the three coinrnunists from District One were to be barredfrom the

% united States.67 Whether there was any direct connection between this action and that of ..

-the Canadiac government is not known. What was clear to Murphy, however, was that -- -. ,,

. . CCL officials had now helped precipitate sikilar problems for American trade unionists

with the Canadian immigration department. At the April labour lobby of the British

Columbia Federation of Labour in Victoria, he took the opportunity, once again, to sound 1

off on the issue. His drunken ora ion, known in communist circles as " ~ u r ~ h ~ ' s 4'1

0: Underwear Speech,"6* called CCL officials to task for their role in the Robinson affair.

?* 3

Bill Mahoney, jn charge of the CCL's anti-communist campaign in British Columbia, used

some of Murphy% more colourful remarks as a pretext to walk out of the labour lobby with p

. <

a loyal delegation ih train, and to start proceedings against the Mine Mill leader.6~ The

outcome of these proceedings'would have important ramifications for District One in the . .

coming months. So too would the failure of the Federajion's lobby tossway the m 7

+ .

on the issue of labour legislation to be tabled in the assembly the following ",

t . . -3

, week, That failure was also, in part, a product of the rift that opened between the CCL md

communist laburites the previous fall.

a In'November 1947, shortly after laying charges against , , - District,One and before a

full retraction was received, the CCL eiecutive took the opponunity to'writz its affiliates % - asking-them to make independent nominations for representation on the new provincial

Labour Relations Board, if they were not happy with the Federation choices.70 On 13

January, Wisrner appdinted his new LRB under the chairmanship of J. Pitcairn Hogg., As

CCL representative, Wismer chose Harry Strange, nominated by a small Canadian

Brotherhood of Railway Employees local, in disregard of his supposed agreement with the' t c

Federation that Mackenzie would serve on its I ~ h a l f . ~ ~ Given that part of the new Board's

mandate from Wismer was to design amendments to make the ICA Act (1947).more

wo1'kable,~2 the rejection of the CCL nominee was considered by Pritchett to be an

indication of more trouble to come.73 Indeed, he was quite correct.

In December, Wismer had told "the Mine Mill district convention he favoured

making the supervised strike ballot discretionary, as it had been prior to 1947.74 In late

January, Finance Minister,Anscombe calmed business fears by stating that the supervised

ballot would remain as.it was.75 Not to be outmaneuvered, Pritchett announced that the

IWA had no objection to governmept supervision per se as it actually strengthened the

effect of any vote as an'expression of the real will of the membership. But, he reserved,

any voti should be,run by the'union according to its constitution., with ~upervision onlv by

government officia,lsJQ Given rhe weakness of the.1947 anti-Bill 39 campaign, the recent ,, ,

meddling , of . the CCL in Federation affairs, and the renewed demands coming from

organized business groups for even tighter restrictions on unions, Pritchett was whistling . .

in the wind. ', , .

On 27 February, Hugh Dalton of the CMA, andT.G. Norris, Vice-President of the D

Vancouver Board of Trade, presented a brief to the LRB on behalf of the usual g o u p of

forest industry, mining and other business associations, Among' the more significant

recornrnendau&s was a:proposal for & 'LRB-ordered vote of all employees affected on any . . . . a

employer prbpsd forsettllqq[of ~ % a strike An-other would have giveqthe LRB power to - ' , r ,revoke the ~enificaiion d,my trad&d& on strike illegally. On 27 March, a further

~

, - missive was sent di&ctl\ - . to Wismer s ~ & e & i n ~ k e r & n changes in government policy with

> ' I \ -

respect to l abu r , most notably that _.. IN:LCA j . . Act (1495) bh amended to include a Taft- -

Hartley-type provision that would exclude from recognition under the Act any trade union ' ~

whose officers had not filed a non-communist affidavit with the LRB.77 The employers

did not win Wismer's support on this last point, though some Coalition members

announced their intention to fight for such an amendment when the bill came before the

Even without an affidavit provision, Bill 87, as the Industrial Conciliation and

Arbitration Act, 1947, Amendment Act, 1948 was known, cut far deeper into trade union

power than had Bill 39 the year before. The editor o f the B.C. bemoaned

that, "Bill 39 provided the pittern and was the entering wedge, but foul though it was, its

implications were moderate to what has followed as an inevitable consequence of

permitting it to remain in full force and effect."79 The granting of the two key employer

demands for a discretionary LRB-ordered vote on an employer offer during a strike, and

for cancellation of certification as a consequence of striking illegally, more seriously

undermined a union's strike weapon than did any of the voting provisions or penalties

implemented the previous year. These changes were hardly ameliorated by the shortening

of the minimum period prior to striking from 79 to 57 days after the start of negotiations. . Furthermore, the employer-push to have the unions fully incorporated under the law was

canied a step further with the removal of section 47 of the Act, clearing the way for civil

litigation for any alleged breach of a collective agreernemm

IWA compliance with the new labour act in 1947 had been a major setback for the

British Columbia labour movement and played a major role in paving the way for Bill 87.

IWA compliance with the ICA Act (1948), however, would be tantamount to compliance

with the Taft-Hartley Act and would seriously'discredit the leadership of District One in its

growing battle with the white bloc. And with the CCL ~peratives gradually-eroding the

power bases of left-wing unionism in British Columbia, control of the all important

wocdworkers' union was a strategic necessity for both sides in the fight. The outcome of

the 1948 Dismct negotiations, to be conducted under the newly-amended Act, would be

critical.

apter Eleven

1947-48: R m

District council One met in its quarterly session on 19 October 1947, at the height

of the Greenall affair. The BCFL fight against the ICA Act (1947) was ostensibly still I

raging under Pritchett's leadership, in spite of the IWA settlement. A week before, the

LRB had been given legal clearance to proceed with prosecution of the steelworkers, and

any others illegally on strike, which at the time included furniture and packinghouse

workers andb~ilermakers.~ A long &scussion ensued regardng the International position

on the Taft-Hartley bill. Pritchett, pointing to' the current British Columbia strikes, urged

the need for economic action of the trade union movement to defeat these bills. IWA

acceptance of Taft-Hartley contradicted and undermined the fight against the ICA Act

(1947) in British Columbia. If the American union movement were defeated on Taft-

Hartley, it would not be long before British Columbia and the rest of Canada adopted a

similar provision, Pritchett predicted. Mitchell and Alsbury once again argued that District

One was already in compliance with the Act inasmuch as it was using the certification and

unfair labour practices provisions. Dalskog jumped to the defence. Yes, the District was

using the Act, but had never said openly, and before the public, that it was complying with

the law. "We have requested the government," ~ a l s k o g argued rather opaquely, "to

prosecute employers, and that puts ammunition in our pockets to be used against the ~ i f l . ' ~ a

In the minds of D~strict One leaders on both s s, the interconnection between Taft- t Hartley and the ICA Act (1947) was very immediate. For Alsbury and Mitchell, the British

Columbia law, while bad, was to Qe obeyed until changed through conventional political

channels. The use of collective bargaining and economic action to try to effect political

change went beyond the kind of pure-and-simple vision of trade unionism they held. I f

Fadling could use defiance of the law as a vehicle to rid himself of communists on his

executive board, then so might the New Westminster faction use the issue to further their

goal of seizing control of the District. The ICA Act (1947) did not provide as neat a

-339-

mechanism as did the American law with its affidavit provision. The British Columbia

white bloc would have to pursue different tactics. On the one hand they would try to tar the

Dismct leaders with the Taft-Hartley anti-communist brush. On the other hand, they would

make it as difficult as possible for Dismct One to defy the Act through economic action.

The passage of Bill 87"would of course make their whole project much more straight

forward.

From the pe'rspective of the District officers, by the fall of 1947 they had lost a

battle over negotiations, but were still engaged in the larger war against the ICA Act (1947)

-through the BCFL, and through the localized .economic actions of their own union.

Together with the Fadling recall, those actions were designed, in part, to regain some

momentum amongst the rank-and-file for the broader union agenda. The passage of Bill 87

i i April solidified the linkage between Taft-Hartley and the British Columbia Act and set

the stage for the coming struggle with the industry and the white bloc. ' -

Nineteen forty-eight negotiations would be about which vision of trade unionism,

which approach to industrial relations, was going to prevail in District One. What made the

position of Pritchett and company so untenable was that they were swihming against a tide

that up to 1945 they had quite willingly allowed to sweep them along toward the

institutionalization of industrial relations practice. Only when that tide smashed up against

the shores of Taft-Hartley, the Truman Doctrine and the "Marshall Plan, did the District

Council decide i t was time to jump ship. Unfortunately for them,'there would soon be . .. q*;

nowhere to jump. But in the last half of 1947:with the spring offensive for the 40-hour

week clear in their memories, tnere .st$ qpeared to be some room to manoeuvre. The

master negotiations concluded District One continued it:: project of broadening the process - -

and content collective bargaining by attempting to bring several outstanding sectional

issues into the framework of the master agreement through on-the-job action. At the same

time they might add a little more weight to the larger fight against "Taft-Hartleyism" in

Bntish Columbia.

As the workforce in wood expanded dramatically after the war, while trade union *

practice was growing more bureaucratic, the District ca$re was not unaware of potential

dangers, The more the process of contract negotiations became centralized and focussed on

the bargaining table;-the weaker the union's position became with respect to issues that -

were not of a~ industry-wide nature. One of the lessons of the 1946 strike that Pritchett

alluded to in his frank assessment .Gas the need to broaden out and decentralize

responsibilities, to involve more members more directly in the process. The 40-hour week

struggle was partly a response to that recognition, and District leaders were pleased with its

success. Bert Melsness expressed this feeling well in his assessment of the 1947

settlement:

The 40-hour week was not won by talking in negotiations or by proving the point through statistics.. .the pressure of job action forced the employers to recognize the fact hat the workers were going to have this desirable

- condition of work egardless ... action on the job was echoed in the i negotiations chamber. I

Sirmlarly, the operating engineers won a special category wage revision because they had

"showed a desire to fight and were forcing their committees in the various operations to

take up their gnevances." Conversely, the inability of the negotiations committee to win

the demands of other special classifications such as shingle packers and sawyers, cook and

bunkhouse workers, and train crews was, according to ~ e l s n e s s . "the result of inactivity

on a broad basis amongst these worker^."^

Shingle sawyers and packers had, in fact, been agitating through their particular

plants for some months prior to the 1947 negotiations. Spokesman for local 1-217, Vern * ..

Carlyle, maintained they had been holdin back in the interests of the whole union. But

slulled shingle workers were growing restive. On the floor of the January 1947 District

convention, Carlyle demanded the union take immediate action, before the master

negotiations, to address their concerns. He noted that since the union had become

organized more attention had been paid to raising the wages of unskilled and semi-skilled

workers. That fact, combined with the deterioration of timber quality (related in part to the

-341-

export of-the better cedar logs to the United States), changes in grading rules and

production methodsm had caused a severe reduction in the wages of sawyers. Moreover, %

TURB estimated that shingle mill wage increases in general, including common labour

rates, had fallen behind those in-sawmills during the course of the war by 7.6 percent.

Carlyle considered the situation "very serious" for the union inasmuch as "if the I.W.A. is

not able to gain for her workers in that industry satisfactory wages and condition, we have

no doubt in our minds but what the A.F.L. will line up with the bosses and give them

certain result^."^

Clearly alarmed, the union immediately demanded guaranteed hourly wages for

shingle sawyers and packers, an increase in the piece rate, and pay on an hourly basis for

machine preparation, to be negotiated under the section of the contract allowing revision of 6

rates once annually by mutual consent.. Stuart refused to consider the demands. He

interpreted the wage-opener clause to apply only to individual plants where anomalies (B

existed. The union was asking for an across-the-board adjustment for the entire shingle

industry, .which could be considered only when the master agreement came up for

revision.5

When it did come up, however, the settlement excluded any special consideration of

shingle workers. Stuart's only concession was a suggestion that in cases of exceptionally

poor timber, or, where earnings of sawyers and packers fell for reasons beyond their

control, plant crews could seek a remedy through their grievance ~ornmittees.~

The union, however, could not rest easy with that little. The shingle sector, out of

which Pntchett himself had come, had been the original nucleus of' the union. With

growing disenchantment in the two large milling locals it was important to keep the shingle

workers on side by respondmg to real rank-and-file concerns. One way to counter the dnft

toward compliance with legalism in the mills would be to demonstrate that militant on-the-

job action could stdl get results. Moreover, Pritchett himself was actively involved through

the Federation in the anti-Bill39 campaign, just then reaching its peak, and wanted to keep

his union in the fray after the industry-wide settlement.

On 9 July, only six days after signing the 1947 agreement, the District Policy

Committee sent a memo to all members. Taking Stuart at his word, since the industry

would not negotiate the shingle demands on a District basis, the union would have to

negotiate with each operation individually. The Policy Committee instructed that these

demands be presented by plant committees immediately, and be backed up by stop-work

meetings of entire crews.7 Carlyle, president of 1-217, wrote all his shingle chief stewards

on 10 July providing more explicit instructions: call an immediate meeting of the crew,

elect a negotiating committee, and, "while your committee is interviewing management,

sawyers and packers and the whole crew if possible wait around outside the office to hear

results." This action was to be repeated once each day until a settlement was r e a ~ h e d . ~

Stuart, soon apprised of union plans, wrote to Pritchett a week later denying that his

suggestion regarding individual plant grievances was to be "interpreted as an invitation to

union representatives" to negotiate the demand for guaranteed hourly wages in every

shingle plant at once. Definitely, the shingle manufacturers were not prepared to make any

further across the board concessions beyond 12; cents. "The contract was concluded and

the wage clause initialled by both parties on that basis," was Stuart's last word on the

rnatter.9 The industry's categorical refusal to negotiate did not deter District One.

Through July and August the union proceeded with its stop-work strategy at

various plants, thereby contributing in a small way to the effort to oppose the ICA Act

(1947). Employer representatives contended that these so-called half-hour grievance

meetings we;, in fact, "activities intended to restrict or limit production," and therefore in

violation of the ICA Act (1947), as well as the collective agreement.1•‹ Stuart tried to

assure the industry that the union's tactics were not paying off inasmuch as the shingle

operators had refused any concessions and employees were being docked for time off the

job." In fact, the union's tactics did produce results. On 18 August the shingle operators

agreed to resume industry-wide talks. Three days later, the fight against the ICA Act

(1947) entered a new phase when over 300 members of the United Steelworkers of

America struck five Vancouver iron and machinery plants prior to taking a government-

supervised strike vote. l2

Having forced the shingle operators back in to negotiations, it was another matter for

the District Committee to wrest substantial concessions from them. Though the union

offered to drop its demand for a guaranteed hourly wage in exchange for a boost in the

piece rate, pay for preparation time and a bonus for sawing unbolted timber (timber not

already cut up into short pieces), the industry remained opposed to any across-the-board

increase beyond some compensation for preparation time.13 The industry also threatened - -

to halt further negotiations unless the union terminated its job-action tactics. In order to

remove any obstacle to a successful settlement, the District Policy Committee recommended

that locals call off stop-work meetings. In some plants these actions were leading to

division on crews between the sawyers and packers, and common labourers who were not

covered by union demands.14

Perhaps an even more significant factor in determining District strategy at this point

was the announcement the day before, on 2 September 1947, that Premier Hart had

launched the "second largest mass prosecution in B.C. history," by approving charges

- - against 144 steelworkers, two union officials and two USW locals.15 Union members and

officials, if found guilty, could have been fined $50 and $75 for each day of the illegal

strike, and the union as a whole, $125 per day. Though District One's sudden halt to job

action may only have been coincidental, subsequent events in the shingle negotiations

indicate the steelworkers' case had a salutary effect on the IWA.

Two more meetings with Stuart resulted in further compromise by the union on the

piece-rate increase, but continued refusal by the industry to consider a blanket raise. On 10

September, with the operators willing to concede only some unspecified recognition for cf9

%

preparation time, i t was mutually agreed to proceed to bindmg arbitration as a way of

settling all mattes under consideration.16 That decision effectively removed the shingle

crews from any further direct involvement in the dispute, or from any further participation *

in the larger action against the ICA Act (1947). It would be fully six weeks before the

arbitration board met to consider the case. In the interim, the shingle operators had time to

reassess the situation. With board chairman J. Edwin Eades pressing the employers to

c o n f m the points to be arbitrated, the shingle. operators held a series of meetings. They

assessed the likelihood of a strike if they backed out of the hearings, and the degree of

solidarity to be expected in their own ranks in resisting one. It was generally agreed that

the industry lacked a solid front. Several operators would likely cave in if a strike resulted

from refusal to go ahead with the arbitration. Still, though accusations of bad faith and an

industry-wide strike were considered likely consequences, the operators' policy committee . was swayed by the outspoken and aggressive representative from BSW's Red Band

operation. Charles Plant strongly resented the notion of a guaranteed hourly wage, and he

was quite prepared to stand up to a stnke. As far as Plant was concerned, the indecisive'

operators could make their own deal with the union.17 Accordingly, the industry counsel

appeared before the board, argued ingenuously that the union had already dropped the issue

of a guaranteed rate, and claimed the operators had never agreed to'arbitrate that demand

nor an increase in piece rates, both major matters already settled in master negotiations.

Only the issue of preparation time outside of established shifts was currently a matter of

dispute.18

The shingle operators, obviously a disunited group, had apparently been rushed

into arbitration by the union and Stuart, without full consultation or consideration.19 Stuait

had initiated the arbitfation and confirmed in writing to the union the matters in d i ~ p u t e . ~

The union had then waited six weeks to hear that. the industry was no longer interested in - binding arbitration. Here was an obvious issue over which to strike against an evidently

divided industry with some reasonable hope of success. Unfortunately for the union, the

shingle crews themselves were divided. Furthermore, while prior to the war smkes during

the term of agreement were common place and an accepted part of the industrial relations

process, by the fall of 1947 they had been ruled out. In April, the loggers had taken their

Saturday "holidays" with a feeling of considerable immunity from legal consequehces. The

moral authorjty of PC 1003 had worn $in, and the imposition of charges and prosecuhons

6 under wartime emergency regulation designed to limit interruption of production had

appeared highly unlikely. By 0cto&r, that moral authority had been transferred to I

provincial jurisdiction by Bill 39, and &en renewed application to peace-time conditions 1 .

under the ICA A n (1947). .Trial runs *ere in progress against two unions. a s well, the e

coercive nature of the Act had been intebalized by a sizeable proportion of the rank-id- a

I file, particularly in the sawmill locals. Adherence to the law'had been adopted as a matter O

i of policy by the New Westminster execuiive. Fadling's suspension of Jack Greenall on 25

1

+- M October only served to exacerbate the sgte of internal tension in the Dismct. Half-hour . G3 I

d stoppages in scattered plants were one thing. The District leadp-ship was not in a position

-..

to withstand mass prosecutions of shingle! workers following a full-scale illegal strike, with , -

all of the political consequences entailed.: At any rate, the prosecution of the steelworkers9

rank-and-file, together with the six week delay in the shingle case, had no doubt dampened '

whatever enthusiasm had existed amongst the crews for job action in July and August.

On 3 1 O c t e r , a week after the collapse of arbitration proceedings, the District

settled with Stuart Research. There would be no guaranteed wage. The piece-work rate

for sawyers was adjusted, though only half as much as originally requested, with an

additional piece-work (not hourly) increment to cover preparation time. Premiums for

sawing unbolted timber were left to individual plant committees to negotiate up to a

maximum of two cents per squarc2l.

These gains were minimal. Nevertheless, the union could claim a partial victory d

inasmuch as militant action by plant employees had forced the shingle operators back to the

bargaining table to make an industry-wide adjustment over and above the 12; centsper ~

hour-something d e y had adamantly opposed in J&. This victory, howekr, would be

the last of its type the District leaders could legitimately claim.

' The limited success of stop-work action in the shingle mills encouraged the District -

to atteppt similar tactics in the much safer milieu of the logging camps. Trainmen, who

* were responsible not only for hauling logs, but also logging crews to and from work,

customarily worked 10 hours per day at a lower hourly rate than paid for logging work of

comparable skill.9 Moreover, the union contended that between '1934 h d 1944, trainmen

had steadily lost ground to loggers insofar as most wage adjustments had been in terms of a

flat amount per day.23 Since the adv'ent of indhstry-wide negotiations the union had failed

= . to win any special adjustment. Stuart considered the union case to be phoney since the

actual take-home wages of train crews were amongst the highest in camp for an allegedly

less exacting job.. As evidence he noted that trainmeh had stuck to their jobs during the war

years when many opportunities had existed for them to ~ h a n g e . 2 ~ He was adamant that

, trainmen's hourly wages had to be kept lower than the pay of comparable jobs in the

woods. If not, trainmen would thiR take home more per day than loggers who would

begin clamouring to catch up.Z5

No matter how legitimate its case, the union had a poor bargaining record on this

issue. The employers remained adamant knowing that a majority of train workers would 8 .

not carryarryout the instructions of the union: which entai'red strict-adherence to the eight-hour C - 8

day.. As pirt of its effort to shore bp its position as bargaining agent with the rank-and-file,.

the District leadership made a decisive move in the fall of 1947. Since most companies

were working,their train crews over eight hours without the agreement of the union, crews 3 .-

were instructed to implement the eight-hour day in order to disrupt iogging operations and

force the operators to open up the wage scale for reneg~tiatior; .~~

The problem with this tactic was that the train crews were extremely reluctant to cut

their take-home pay by reducing hours. But they might be prepared to do so only for a

short time in order to pressure the companies to negotiate.27 At Western Forest Industries

I = d -347-

in Cowichan Lake district, trainmen quit work on 14 October while union officials t

negotiated for a wage revision. Unfortunately, while the company was still considering zhe ..x

proposal tko days later, the trainmen approached management and asked to return to their

normal hours. The company refused to reopen wage talks.28

Several conferences .were held in the,Courtenay anfi Duncan locals in the latter part

of October, and plans made to implement the eight-hour day in several of the big camps

between 10 and 19 ~ o v e r n b e r * ~ At BSW's ~ e n i i e s ~ a y camp, two crew members were . I

dismissed ;hen they acted on union aivice to work the eight-hour day. T.J. Noble

threatened that if the matter were taken any further with the union he would ask the: I

Department of Railways to suspend the men's certificates. Logging superintendent J.W. ,-- --,

* I "

Challenger retaliated by laying off one entire side of the operation. A reduction in

production. he explained, was warranted by the eight-hour train crew day. It remained

closed un t i l January, though the eight-hour day was never put into effect.30 As in its 1942

fight wlth the union over recognition, BSW was quite prepared to curtail or sacrifice

production at its secondary Menzies Bay operation in order to stop union action which

might have gfected major camps in the Alberni area (see chapter three above). *

with train crews themselves reluctant participants in the union strategy, it was too

b much to expect significant support from logging crews-in the face of suf h employer

. . vxction. Out of 17 operations targeted by the union, only 10 or 11 had participated in job

aciion. I n general, train crews were reluctant to go for the shorter weekwithout an increase

i n pay first.' Dalskog reported to his executive that the whole strategy of pressuring the

employers t~ open wage talks had failed. During the first week of December a special

trainmen's conference was held in ~ a n a i m o to review the situation. The conference

attracted delegates from only one-half the operations with train crews, Nevertheless, it

drew up another militant plan including on-the-job action in support of a District Council

request to Stuart rc reopen talks on an industry basis. Though some crews favoured

dropping the matter until the next round of industry negotiations. Dalskog felt that the only

way to force the issue onto the table in the spring was "through action taken n ~ w . " ~ l

Stuart, malung use of his usual channels of information, reported to his clients on 6

December that IWA job action tactics were "not bringing any comfort to those crews who

have heeded the union's advice." Most crews were not complying, and those who had -

were suffering substantial loss of earnings. Union officials, he noted, had admitted at their

recent conference-that this job action was badly timed. There would be no negotiations

with the IWA on this matter he assured the operators.32 When Dalskog wrote Stuart on 9

December 1947 demanding immediate negotiations to adjust trainmen wage schedules a t l 2

specified companies, Stuart politely informed him that the matter had been settled with the 4

signing of the master contract.33

All that remained, in lieu of economic action by the rank-and-file, was arbitration.

But without Stuart's willingness even to open negotiations, the only thing left to afbitrate

was the BSW dismissal of trainmen Callander and McEntee. Hearings were conducted

through January-March. Stuart noted that the union had taken advantage of the case "to

stage a full dress presentation" of their arguments regarding trainmen's wages in testimony

covering several hundred ~ a g e s . 3 ~ Dalskog reported to his executive that the ~ i s k i c t had

been able to extend the scope of the arbitration from one of unfair dismissal. If the board r

considered all the evidence, the union would be able to utilize the proceedings "to an -. .

advan ta~e in our whole struggle to achieve the just demands of the trainmen." But, he,

continued, "Arbitration in itself isn't something that we are going to have a very good

chance of accomplishirig anything on, unless in conjunction with i t we have the activities

on the job as we11."35 . _, '

I n this instance, the union did not have even the minimal support i t had in the

shingle case, where the threat of strike action had some effect in moving t h e operators. C .

Despite the creative approach of the union, the arbitration proceeded like any older

dismissal hearing. In the end, even the union nominee found in favour of the company',^.

i 1

I '

right "to. dismiss. He ruled rhat on'the unipn's most important point, company d I , I

discrirni+&&on against em$oyees.for union activity, "I can find no proof that they did . .

* anything except take full- advakage of an excellent ~ p p o n u n i t y . " ~ ~ The only small

concession salvaged by- the union from the trainmen debacle was an admission by Stuart ,- 0

- '&at the door was not "barred and b70fted." Though the operators were "somewhat-

incensed'' at the .trainmen's rather unsuccessful job action, the union lrad at least

demons~gted that there was an unsettled problem that would "fester till settled." The ' , >,

of future ad&itmmtnt re1nained.3~ Q

' , C '

- ~ a l s k o ~ ' s attempt to put the best face on it notwithstanding, the union's final resort

taubitration pbceedings in which the employer obviously had the upper hand, was an * . - 4

admission that its strategy of countering the over-centralization of collective bargaining by

mobilizing the rank-and-file was faltering. Despite these setbacks, in the fall of 1947, the

District Counril persisted in its' struggle to resist and even reverse the imposition of sharp

new definitions and limitations beiqg placed on trade union practice and rights.

The next move against the union, in what was beginning to seem like an

or~hs t ra ted assault, originated with the BCLA. At the end of November, Sid Smith from -

BSW, who was Association secretary, reported on a meeting held by the Truck Loggers

where a raise in camp board charges was announced for 1 January. There was some

concern that such a move would dnve up wage demands. With legal clearance from Stuart

Research that such increases were in no way resmcted by the collect'ive agreement, the

BCLA decided to hold a special session.38 On 2 ~ e c e m b e r , the matter was aired

thoroughly with one operator expressing concern that "the action contemplated would result

in opening the wage scale 6 months ahead of time." Van Dusen from H.R. Macmillan /'

Indusmes firmly rejected the notion of coordinated action, fearing it might lead to the

incorpomtion of the board issue into industry negotiations. Laclung a firm consensus,'the 6

. e

Asscxiation approved in principle a plan to raise board charges to meet increased costs, but

iniplmxntation was left to the discretion of each member.39 BSW was the first company

3

to act. It boosted rates for board zgd lodging from $1 S O to $2.00 per day, again leading

the way with its Menzies Bay operation. Just before a shut down due to heavy snow, crew

members there voted to refuse to sign back to camp unless the ba rd rate was reduced.40 I I

3

No doubt, the corripany had anticipated possible disruptions, which it was best able to * I

withstand at Menzies Bay. Several other companies soon followed suit, until the increase i had become quite general throughout the coast district.41

The same dramatic leap in prices that prompted this move by the logging operators . 1 was having a serious impact on real wages as well. During the last three months of 1947, , 1 according to TURB statistics, the cost-of-living index had risen 6 6 points, as against

seven points for the whole of 1946. The 1947 increase, the union researchers estimated.

equalled the entire cost-of-living increase during the war period. The union used this data, \. together with the "illegal" board rate hikes to justify a demand for an interim wage;

adjustment under article IV (2) of the collective agreement. A similar request fon I

adjustment of the interior wage scale was put forward to Ruddock of the CMA.42 1

, Now the union u n d e r s d , and, had previously acknowleded during the shing

arbitration, that that section of the contract was not designed to permit

adjustments during the term of the ag r ee r i~en t .~~ Dalskog knew, Stuart's position had bejen /

- ind that the clause did not allow industry-wide adjustments even for shingle sawyers

packers, let alone for the entire w o r k f o r ~ e . ~ The union president evidently had little hQpe 1

of gaining Stuart's agreement to an interim across-the-board wage adjustment when tie 4 n t his request off on 22 January. fndeed, after consulting with the industry committee, 61t

shot back that Dalskog's suggestion fell outside the parameters of adjusting any anoma

or inequities in wage scales of individual c ~ m p a n i e s . ~ ~ -

Still, Dalskog had good reason to make the request, which was bbited loudlj

the front page of the 28 January edition of the Lumber Worker. In part, i t was a "tit-

tat" response to the t m s t in board costs. More broadly, the interim wage demand /

art

ies

designed to counter the onslaught of adverse publidity from the local press, Stuart ~esebrch . 8 I

and the International launched in January in concert with ,the hotly contested campaign of

the white bloc for District office. The District Executive had been accused of following the

road to Moscow, and of neglecting the bread-and-butter issues of pure-and-simple trade

unionism, in favour of a political agenda that was out of step with the mainstream of public

and trade union opinion. Mitchell had pointed to the "slogans around the hall" at the

January District convention, and accused the officers of wasting time trying to recall

Fadling. Now here, in bold print, was evidence that the District Executive was doing the

job i t was elected to do. It was keenly aware of the effect of the rising cost-of-living index

on real wage< and had taken i rnrndate action through conventional collective bargaining

channels to remedy the situation.

When it was announced that Stuart had rejected the proposed negotiation^:^ several

logging crews took i t as a signal to launch further job action in opposition to the effective @

wage cut of 50 cents a day embodied in the board hike. Crews.at Menzies Bay, Smith and

Osberg on Cracroft Island, Alice Lake Logging, D and E Logging, and at four Queen

Charlotte Islands camps, engaged in "sit-down" strikes. Events at Smith and Osberg

escalated with the company shutting down its operation. C.C. Smith, part owner of the

firm, was also president of the Truck Loggers. He was intent on enforcing the current

round of hikes initiated by his Association. The crew moved its pickets to the industry

hiring hall where they stayed until early April. The union demanded that Stuart negotiate

but he refused either dscussions or arbitration on a matter that he considered outside of the

collective agreement.47

The District Executive was caught short by this rank-and-file action that it had not

authorized. Similar action i n the shingle and trainmen disputes had brought small returns

while exacerbating divisions in the workforce. The executive considered that problem at its

IS Marirh meeting. With Stuart proving elusive, the question arose of how to fight the

increase. I t ' was not a major issue, Dalskog noted, but logging crews would be divided

over i t nonetheless since married men did not usually eat in the company cook house, and

their food costs had already risen sharply. Under these circumdtances, the Executive did

not consider it fgasible to shut down all logging operations. With elections on, master ,

negotiations approaching, and the District Council under attack by the forces of "Taft-

Hartleyism," it was agreed to advise local 1-7 1 to call off the Smith and Osberg strike.

Since the employers were apparently trying to draw the union into an illegal strike prior to

the main negotiations in order to dissipate its strength, the Executive decided to fight the

matter through legal channels. They would try, with the help of Gordon Sloan, to get it

ref-erred for interpretation by the Joint Industry Committee. If that did not work, court

action would be launched to force an arbitration and to obtain a restraining order against the

increases.48

Local 1-71 President Nels Madsen and Dalskog were dispatched to Sandpoint on

the Queen Charlottes. From that point, in a style reminiscent of the old organizing days,

they "hlked through five miles of mud trails to connect with Aero Timber's boat and

speedier service to Cumshewa," where they addressed a meeting in the Aero camp.---

Dalskog explained the problem of possible divisions in the ranks. He outlined the danger

of allowing the employers to lay charges of an illegal strike which would weaken the

union's position and discreht 1t in the eyes of the public just prior to negotiations. The two

intrepid officers thenproceeded over the follpwing few days to seven other camps to i

deliver the same message. The Lumber Worker reported that "inball casesPwhere the men

had struck, they voted to return to work. At a later date the fight will be resumed on the

workers' te r~ns ."~9 On 12 April Stuart happily reported to his clients that the agitation i

against the increased board charged had subsided. Most workers affected, he explained '

with auth&ity, regarded the increase as overdue, and did not expect any special wage

consideration because of it in the upcoming negotiation^.^^ To make matters worse, the

District's restraining action had come too late to avoid legal consequences. Under the terms

of the ICA Act (1948), Smith and Osberg obtained a writ for a damage suit against the local

union, its officers, and members involved in the stop-work action at its ~pe ra t i on .~ ' e.

rn There was something ,J both ironic and pathetic in the Lumber Worker's description

of the local and District presidents slogging through miles of muddy terrain to reconnect

with the Queen Ch,ylotte Islands rank-and-file, only to explain that their actions were

inopportune, and might upset the course of industry-wide negotiations. It recalls scenes

from the early 1940s when the crew .of the "Logger's Navy7' made similar expeditions up 9

the rainy coast to sign up these &*ry loggers and establish a rudimentary local

organization around which to negotiate the first signed agreements. It also recalls the

events of 1943, whpn bistrict officers' worked feverishly to coordinate the pent-up L.

militance of the Queen Charlotte Islands loggers with high-level conciliation proceedings in

Vancouver and Ottawa. The result of that successful channeling of rank-and-file militance

had been the first coast-wide woodworkers agreement.

In the early '40s the union had patiently and labouriously utilized a,system of L

L

arbitration to gain recognition and consolidate its organizational structure on an industry

basis. By 1947-48, that industrial relations system was being refined by the state in the

interests of increased prductivity and sustained capital accumulation. In response to Taft-

Hartley and Bill 39, to the bureaucratization in its own ranks resulting from its earlier

successes, and to political attacks bn its credibility as a trade union leadership, pure and

simple, the District Council adopted a strategy of integrating the rank-andfile back into the

industrial relations process. That strategy quickly ran aground in the face of employer

detern~ination to roll back union gains, as well as new legal restrictions, and an acceptance

of the new politics of industrial relations by a large sector of the worRrs influenced by the

lntemational-~ew Westminster bloc.

Furthermore, not only had the once useful system of arbitration turned against

District One. Suddenly brought to light during the struggles of 1947-48 were weaknesses

in its very industrial-union structure, papered over during a period of wartime consolidation

followed by the '"triumph" of the 1946 industry-wide strike. What was supposed to be an

industry-wide collective awemen t contained serious exemptions. What was supposed to

be a province-wide organization was split into two or more distinct bargaining entities. : .x.

What was supposed to be an industrial union in which different production sectors, with

distinct interests, supported one another's' struggles, was shown to have serious

weaknksses and divisions. These problems were only exacerbated by the political fight that s

had intruded into union affairs after the 1946 strike. In short, at a time when British

Columbia Dismct Council One of the IWA was facing its most critical test, the very

foundations upon which it was based, and out of which j~ had grown, were rapidly

crumbling away.

-355-

awter Twelve

1948 Negotiations: Legalism Triumphant

As noted at the conclusion to Chapter en, the outcome of 1948 master contract

negotiations would be critical in determining the future direction of the IWA in British 0

Columbia. The Dismct leadership was already beleaguered by internal divisions as well as

external attacks from the statk, employers, its own International office aqd the larger labour

\ movement. During the few hort months between April and August it would face a t combined assault from all thos4 elements on its integrity, on its political affiliation, on its

trade union programme and its ability to implement it. Previous analysts have examined

this fateful year largely from the perspective of trade unioif "politics," meaning a struggle

between communists and anti-communists for control of the union. This aspect, while I

certainly important, lacks real explanatory value. The questions which so bedevil writers

on the subject-why did the communist leaders of District One leave the IWA in October

1948, and why did the rank-and-file not follow them?-have not been properly answered

because analysts have neglected to study the industrial relations history of this important

period. After all, the success of the communist leadership was basednot on the political

loyalty of the workers to the Communist Party line, but rather on the ability of these leaders

to develop and implement a trade union programme that met the needs of the rank-and-file. a

Even the muting of a militant stance during 1944-45, as much a r i t fit into a larger political

strategy, was acceptable to the rank-and-file in terms of the internal logic of the trade union

agenda in the British Columbia lumber industry. The post-war catch-up strike of 1946 had .

aln~ost complete mass support of the workforce up to the point where the major collective

bargaining objectives had been achieved and individual resources were running low. The

prolongation of that snike, however, opened the door to &visions within the union, which

were only exacerbated when the combined forces of capital and the state retaliated in 1947-

48. 1

At the January 1948 District convention, despite indications of slipping support and

the initiation of a new offensive by the International office, Pritchett had defiantly informed

Mitchell that the bargaining slogans around the hall would never be realized so long as

political and civil rights of workers were being trampled on by the forces of reaction,

imperialism and monopoly capitalism. The economic struggle could never be won on its

own. But neither could the political one. As 1948 negotiations drew upon them, District

One's leaders faced the ever more daunting task of continuing their programme of

combining both within the narrowing legalistjc framework of collective bargaining. To

cease that struggle implied not only defeat in the im&xhate fight against a bad law. It also

meant renouncing an entire past of militant, political trade unionism aimed at achieving the

lega! entrenchment of the collective bargaining and trade union rights that were currently

under attack. It was upon those achievements that their identity as trade unionists and their

claim to continue to represent the woodworkers as bargaining agents rested. To be forced

to renounce that past, to accept aecomplete separation between economic and political

action, would be to adopt the pure-and-simple trade unionism of their adversaries. In . subsequent District and loca) elections, one.slate would be the same as the next. An activist

political cadre would be submerged in the "Taft-Hartleyesque" consensus politics sweeping

the CIO unions. On the other hand, to smke but in a bold and militant direction in defiance , .

' of the law, without the solid b&ng of the rank-and-file, could resuit in prosecution and . .

possible decertification. This scenario was all the more likely given an alternative ' ;

leadership faction waiting in theqwings, backed up by the support of international

headquarters. It was in the middle of this conundrum . that . Dismct Councjl One opened

negotiations with Stuart Research at the end of April. ,JY

$ I The District Negotiating Committee for the a$st talks, composed of Dalskog,

* Pntchett, Melsness, Vern Carlyle, Stewart Alsbury, I.J. Gibson from Duncan and Allan

Dunn from the interior, entered negotiations with clear direction from the April Wage and

Contract Conference.' The ICA ~ c t ; consolidated in 1948 to include both the 1947 and

1948 amendment acts, still required a minimum of 57 days between the beginning of

bargaining and a legal trike.^ But to avoid the situation of the previous year when

negotiations were prolonged by a mult ipkity of major demands, the conference put

forward just two: 35 cents;across the board and a union shop. Beyond these, four

secondary issues were to be pursued: a welfare plan, a five-day work week with no

exceptions to the 40-hour rule, reduction in probation for seniority, and an increase in the

night-shift differential. Other sectional and regional questions, such as the trainmen's

hours and wages, the Queen Charlotte Islands differential, board charges and guaranteed

daily wages for piece workers were to be handled supplementary to the main negotiation^.^

With the amended ICA Act firmly in place, union strategy would have to be

modified, but militant tactics not necessarily eliminated. Given the obvious difficulties in

circumventing the conciliation provisions of the Act, Dalskog and Pritchett, in line with

I conference strategy, explored with the committee ways of expediting compliance without

losing momentum. By shortening time spent in negotiations, it might be possible then to

proceed through conciliation as a preliminary to further action. Under a provision in the ..

ICA Act (1948), theLRB was empowered to by-pass the con cilia ti^^ officer and appoint a

board d i r e ~ t l y . ~ All of these steps, of Course, depended .on cooperation from Stuart

Research. The committee was soon disabused of any illusions on that count.

Stuart entered these negotiations on 3 ' ~ a ~ with the deck stacked. He not only had

the amended ICA Act at his back, but also could take satisfaction in the fact that District

One officials were under siege from the International office in P ~ r t l a n d . ~ As he told his

clients i n January, the dspute between the two political elements in the IWA was "warming

up," with accusations against the present District leaders of "disruptive pctics at a time of \

approaching wage negotiations."6 Moreover, in April, the American woodworkers settled

for 12; cents and little else, down from an opening demand of 32; cents.'

Stuart's-clients were i n an aggressive mood. With Stuart, on the industry

negotiating team, were employer advisory representative Prentice Bloedel, Stuart Research

associate J.M. Billings, and legal advisor Wilf Heffernan. They quickly put a damper on

union plans by refusing to divide up the negotiating agenda between industry-wide and

sectional issues, and by insisting on dealing with minor items first. While Stuart brought a

multiplicity of issues to the table himself, it would be 26 May before the union would hear.

his wage proposal. In the interim, his committee flatly refused to discuss union shop, and

brushed off thewelfare fund as an individual company matter not appropriate for industry

negotiation.* As well, Stuart issued advice to his clients not to comply with any union

requests to check off special stnke fund levies. He justified &is aQvice on the spurious

grounds that "any stnke without due process of law being observed would be illegal," and J

that the cdling of any smke, legal or not, terminated the c ~ n t r a c t . ~ Such a belligerent

feeling of invulnerability to stnkes was clearly a product of recent labour legislation. The

union complained quite correctly of contract violation. Stuart was quickly put right by legal

counsel upon whose advice, a week later, he informed clients they must honour all such

properly submitted requests. lo

The check-offs in question had resulted from a decision taken by the District Policy

Committee to beef-up the regular stnke fund with a special "fighting fund" for a "fighting

program," based on a day's pay or $5.00 maximum per week. The current fund was

sitting at about $70,000 at the beginning of May, and slowly accumulating at the rate of

$6000 per month. The union hoped to increase i t to $200,000 by 20 June, the day the C

current contract expired. Local quotas for the large logging and sawmill locals were set at

over $20,000 each. I

Once the union's opening stntegy had been quickly derailed by Stuart's stalling and

intransigence, the committee cautiously looked for a new approach. With the Smith and

Os'berg suit for damages fresh in their minds,I2 and the white bloc ever attentive, the

committee members moved tentatively ,m draw the rank-and-file into the negotiating process

by establishing the union shop on the job. A plan was drawn up whereby local action

committees were to make a final sign-up effort, encourage all members to sign for check-

off, and then set a date for "a gate showing of union cards".as a demonstration of solichity y

, .

with the demand. When the organizational campaign had reached its peak, union members

would be asked to vote in a referendum bdlot for o r against the union shop. Thk'results , -

. - 0

were to be submitted by 15 July to the Dishict office. 'The views of manigeement on ' 0 '

the subject were also to be canvassed for the record. The ever-vigilant Alsbury raised the '

6

point whether the ballot was to be merely an expression of member opinion, or an .

expression of determination to achieve demands by any'means possible. He was placated * -,

with a warning to l&al members to avoid any illegal strike action.13 , iI

At the same 11 May committee meeting where these creative tactics:were first ,., - .

discussed, International President Fadling made a pact with Pritchett that both sides should . . <

lay a i d e public d.isp1ays of intra-union differences for the dJration of negotiations,14, ' ' ' J

I I

Tnree days later, Fadling turned up at a New Westmin~ter executive meeting md stiied that. . - , ,$*

the B.C. Lurnbei Worker had to 'be cleaned up.15 He was apparently referring to an d

k. Everett, story reprinted in the 5 May issue extoiiing the Northern LVashi~gton District's . b - e

resistance to the Taft-Hartley "slave law.'' District Two had broken away from north-west

regi~n~wide negotiations over thef1ntemationalys compliance with the,law. This move was

reportedly vindicated by the winning of a complete settlement, including "a form of ~ ' - . .

accumu!ative check off' that ran counter to the Act, while the other district councils were

still "wound up in red tape."I6 Fadling waited almost two weeks after the story appeared.

Then in a move intended to support ( w h i t e bloc's efforts, he included in his radio . \

1

broadcast a blast at the Lumber Worker for printing untrue reports concerning the District

Two 12;-cent settlement which, he argued, "kneels to the Taft-Hartley Iaw."17 Q

The same day, 17 May, She Dismct ~xecut ive met to consider the progress of 4

negotiations. The committee rPponed it was evident that emphyer strategy was to delay as

long as possible dealing with the main demands in order to drag out negotiations to the -

actual termination date of the contract. The CMA's Ruddock was using similar tactics at .

Pnnce George. With any hope gone of rushing quickly through conciliation, the union

. a was now working toward 100 percent organization in the locals and a $200,000 strike fund

\

f while it waited for the industry offer. lg It came on 26 May: eight percent, with a floor of <il Bi w 4

10 cents for those at the lower end, on condition that the union drop all its major demands, " 'A$$

including union shop, welfare fund and the hours-of-work amendments.19 8

=, The union was being asked to take an increase in percentage terms, well below the '*

12?, cent rate established in April in the American lumber industry and duplicated early in

- , May by Mine Mill at Trail and Kimberly.20 No consideration at all was to be given to any Y Y

r 4 - *

of the other substantive demands put forwarfly Wages and contract Conference. But . 64 " ++

.without a strike vote in hand, or a substantial s nd, and with one imfiortant local Q'

executive, backed b) the International, opposed toanything but the strictes~~~bservance c e of : ' {

the law, the District committee had very little bargaining power. a - * ! . A; 4 i, g r . . %

P In 1947, at this p i n t in negotiations, a strike Lote had been td& which pr@ed to

be disastrous. hkw, the corkqittee needed some alternative vehicle through which to elen , .

pressure on the industry and build support among the rank-and-file. Pritchett suggested I

that if thig was Stuart's final offer, it be put to the membership with a recommendation to *

. reject. Alsbury immediately wanted assurace that the vote would not be a strike vote, and

was told it was definitely n~t.21 Stuart was informed that the union was not breaking off

talks, merely recessing to poll its members.22 Stuart was not about to be fooled. He

quickly informed his clients, "in vie6 of the union's stated intentions to collect as much

. I money 4s possible while the matter is being voted on, i t is not likely there will be any i

, * resumption of negotiations, as this might have &depressing effect on collection^.'^ - .-

Indeed, as Alsbury suspected, the break in negotiations, the vote in conjunction r

with a stepped up campaign to meet the 20 June target of $200,000 and the union shop 9'

referendum were designed to put the woodworkers on a strike footing,without actually

taking a vote. Even the wording on the ballot was puiposely drawn up to illicit a.positive

"yes" response, similar to that an a strike referendum, to the question: "Do you favour

4 rejecting the operators proposals.'Q4 Alsbury took exception to the wording and informed

, . *

-361- . . *. J - 6

his local executive that the bording had still to be finalized by the District Policy v

Committee. He favoured a simple ballot with a '%o" vote on whether to accep? the

employers' oTfer. He also informed his colleagues that while it was essential to build a ' ' .

strong strike fund, it should be called a s e e fund and not a "fighting fund." Alsbury

sensed that the momentum on the committee was shifting in favour of his opponents. He B

askid his local e Lutive to back him in his move to demand that an International officer be 8- 1

present in negotiafions, as the committee, as y;t had had no representation from the

International office.25 , t

At the 31 May ~ e ~ o t i a t i n g Committee meeting, Alsbury raised these issues of 0 . .- -

terminology. He reminded~he committee that the wording on the ballot had still to be Y

decided by the full Policy Comfiiittee, an# complained of the confusion caused amongst

some of his local members by the use of the term "fighting fund" in the uniqn leaflet: As 1

petty as these &sues seem, it is a measure of the white bloc's power,*as well as the ~ i s t r i c t 4

committee's desire tarhaintain a united front, that they were given consideration. At the 2 I

June Policy Committee-meeting, a special sub-comrnittee consisting of Alsbury, Higgin, *

Pntchett and Bob Range from Prince George, was struck to re-word the ballot. The B

8 committee recommended reproducing the bsses ' proposal with the question "Are you in - favour," so to reject would require a %o" vote.26

a B la& were afpot. When the On the surface unity prevailed. Behind the sc x,

.- - t

Policy Committee asked permission to use the Internati ' P 4

negotiations, Fadling gladly agreed. He also announced>& intention to go on tour with

- . , Nsls Madsen of local 1-7 1 to takythe ball , as he wanted to "see some of 'be country."27 7 ,

A week.later, at his local's 11 June execude meeting, Alsbury happily reported that the i

referendum ballot had been drawn up "in-accordance with our wishes.'? At the same

meeting. however, George Mitchell's motion carried, authorizing the local to take regal a

"\ , .

\ action against the District Council. to obtain a copy of the indepenhent audit which. had been --\A

/ " . .

c 1

submitted qn 17 May, since the District officers refused to cqn$ly w i i #@e localk re&+ , * . . .

to see it.28 .

I

/' The same day, Sman circulMred his clients with the news that-negotiations were . a

( still recessed as IWA officials were engaged with their.referendum balloywhilk at the same 1 I d

. . i time trying.to stir up some enthusiasm for the strike fund "which is repined tobe me;t?tig, !

,' with disappointing y e ~ u l t s . " ~ ~ , If Stuart were getti'ng some special information in this .

, . . regard from s k e s withtn the union, he did not really need their help. On 22~une . Stuart . -

i . . * ' heard from the District committee that ,it was prepared to resume negotiations now that

I I

sufficient ballots had been received to indicate a substantial majority against acceptance.30 I I That was to be expected. What Stuart really wanted to know for certain was the degree of i L 1 support amongst the rank-and-file for stnke action as'expressed through voluntaty strike I ,

fund contributions. In 1947, the union's published strike vote i e i ~ l t s told bim that suppon

was lackmg for a strike. This year he w.ould have to make his own assessment of union . .

. . bargaining strength based on the degree of fi~ancial suppon members were willing to

provide in association with their rejection of his offer. From this data, it mig-lit also be

possible to gauge to what extent the rank-and-file had been affected byf internal political

divisions exacerbated by recent allegations of missing funds. Accordingly, he yrote his L

172 clients- req;esting information regarding the response to the union's drive for its - Fighting Fund. Companies were asked to show total number of employees, the number of

'contributions through the check-off to the Fighting Fund, and the total amount - The data gatfiered, to the extent that it accurately reflected membership

I

support, indicated to Stuart that he could sit tight, in spite of the members' overwhelming

rejection of his off&, and wait foPthe union lo make the next move. ~ a s e d on his retdmg,

it appeared to Stuart that the union had.neither the financid~resources nor the m~mbership

- . support to wage a successful indushy-wide stnke on the coast. . -

Serious flooding in the Fraser Valley during the latter part of May and into June .

closed many operations there, so check-off results from these operations compiled' up to 28

A . June did not reflect employee suppo rt.: With loss of income over sever& weeks, however,

these workers would be disinclined to contribute later or to go on strike. The

woodworkers in the locals affected, mainly 1-357 and 1-367 (Mission), were not known

for their avid support of the District Council at any rate. The flood could be largely /" disregiirded as an important factor affecting the significance of the returns.

\ ,

Stuart received reporis from 127 operations employing 20,371 persons. Of these, ,

80 operations reported no contributions at all "hrough the check-off. Forty-seven B

operations reported contributions bf a total of 2899 employees, amounting to $15,726. Of

all the employees . . covered by these reports, 14.2 percent contributed. The average

contribution per contributor was $5.42, just over the minimum reque'sted by the union, but

well below a day's pay for a common labourer earning 95 cents per hour. The average

. contribution per employee was 77 cents. -

Being aware of the important sectoral &visions in the workforce, Stuart had the data

broken down into logging'and milling components. The results reflected the same -

_ unevenness in suppon.for the union that showed up in the 1947 stnke vote. As would

o become evident later, this was largely due to a total boycott by the New westminster local.

At any rate, reports from 57 logging operations employing 6971 workers showed 30 ,

. camps with no contribution. Twenty-seven camps reported contributions by 1777

crnployees of $1.0.852, meaning just over 25 percentaf loggers involved contributed an ' - . average of $6.1 1 each. Overall average contribution from all loggers covered was $1.56.

With reports i n from 70 mills employing 13,400 persons, 50 mills reported no

contributions, while 20 reported contributions by 1122 persons, or 8:4 percent of the total, ' k - .' amounting to'$4874. Average per contributor was $4.'34. Average per employee was 36;

While the New Westminster boycott no doubt skewed the results, the discrepancy

between millworker and Iogger support for the union was borne out by returns at the end of >

July submitted.for B.C. Forest Products mill and logging &visions., In this case, 204 of

I - rf

1147 mill employees contributed a total of.$635, whik 156of 437 loggers conaibutM ,'

t . d

$1201. Mill results here were affected by an apparent boycott by I-jarpmond iub-local, I . I - "

7-

an anti-District stronghold in local 1.~367 ( M i ~ s i o n ) . ~ ) Similarly, BSW showed,

donmbutions of $1927 from 355 of 905 loggers at its Bloedel and&nklin River camps. '

but only $220 from 39 contributors out of 622 employees at its Port Alberni sawmill.

Because of outstanding-support from its Victoria Lumber Company, R.R. MacMillan

Export returns showed a somewhat closer ratio: 280 of 759 loggers contributed $1475;

352 of 1573 mill hands gave $1626 to the union in May and June. Oven11 pekeniages and

average contributions were possibly misleading due to incomplete returns fro& some

operators that were shut down, or whose employees paid cash directly to the steward. A

reliable gauge of support can more definitely be obtained from these operations where the

check-off was, without doubt, in operation. At Elk River Timber only 85 of 415 loggers

checked-off for the fund during May and June. At Alberni Pacific's camp 27 of 240

employees contributed, at CFP's Englewood.Logging Division, 198 of 893, and at its

Eburne Sawmill, as of 13 July only 7 of 620 had paid into the fund.34

What significance could Stuarl (or the union) attribute to these findings? For the

employer, they indicated that for whatever reason, the union had insufficient funds to shut

down the industry-with the expuy of the current agreement on 20 June. At the rate it was

going, it would take the union all summer to reach its target. Secondly, the data indicated a

real lack of support for a "fighting fund" style of campaign. Union members paid their

dues each month, 25 cents of which'went into a smke fund. That "legitimate" strike fund

was quite carefully being linked by white bloc.proponents to legal strike action i n full

compliance with the ICA Act; action which would likely not take place given the obstruc-tive

provisions cf the Act. The Fighting Fund, for good reason, had become associated with

"illegal" or "political" stnkes carried out in defiance of the Act. The executive members of

1-357 who held back from the District whatever small conmbutions they did receive from

their membership, realized its 'purpose and endeavoured to obstruct its a c c u r n u l a t i ~ n . ~ ~ , .

-365- 1

Stuart could take comfort in the knowledge that Bills 39 and 87, with the assistance of the

white bloc advocates of pure-and-simple unionism; had done a good job of disciplining the \

rank-'and-file. The chances of a strike, at least prior to the full working out of the. - .

conciliation and legal s%e vote provisions of the law, would be an unlikely event in 1948,

or henceforth. .

For the union, the June returns indicated the necessity to continue to "play poker"-

to bargain by bluffikg rather than with real economic clout. ~ n d e h , even by the end of

Septemkr, total voluntary contributions had reached only $33,785. T)ie total strike fund

by that date had reached only $120,000. None of the big four lochs met their qota;.

While 1-217 fell almost $20,000 short, even the Duncan and Vancouver loggers fell

$1 1,000 and $5,500 short respectively.'36 At a time when District One was paying out o,ver . $100,000 a year in per capita payments to the International, and receiving little back in the

way of support or services,J7 its ability to raise the necessary funds t6 make up for this

deficiency had been seriously affected by interference from that 'same International

organization and its New Westminster loyalists. The idea of somehow gaining control over .

those outgoing payments to bolster the District's bargaining power was beginning to seem

very appealing, if not necessary.

Still, a strike at this time, especially a short strike, was not entirely out of the

question if considered only from the perspective of finances. And if a short strike was not

completely unaffordable, then the threat of a smke, or even of a strike vote might be used

to g d effect, given unity in the ranks. But returns indicated a marked lack of unity for a

"fighting" approach to collective bargaining, not only from.$k?New Westminster and

Vancouver mill locals, but quite generally across the industry. The Lumber Worker med to

cover up this problem with the excuse that large donations to a flood relief fund had

"slowed up contributions from the sawmill endof the industry in ~ a n c o u v e r . " ~ ~ But even

' the normally loyal Island loggers se h, ed to be affected by a creeping legalism upon which

the employers now hoped to capitalize.

In the midst of the strike vote, three companies led by BSW's owner, Prentice

Bloedel, who sat on the industry negotiating cornmi ttee, sought to utilize somekreative

tactics of their ovwn to undercut'the union's dnve for the five-day week. Just as the union

sough't to use on-the-job action to reinforce its demands for union security, so would

Bloedel, in a reverse manner, use employee compliance on the job to undermine the

union's position on the work week. With the consent of their crews, operators at Bloedel's

Menzies Bay camp, at Aero Timber on the Queen Charlottes, and at D and E Logging at

Fraser Creek all made application to the Board of Industrial Relations for temporary permits

to work a 48-hour week. In the case of ~ l o e d e l , the application involved 100 rigging a&

road men for the duratidn of the year. The Lumber Worker, correctly seeing this as yet

another splittirig move, spluttered that it was not surprising this had been led by BSW, the

9 fm which had "spearheaded d every new speed-up method" on the Pacific coast.39

Not only did the union have weak links in its ranks, but they were weaknesses of

which the employers were aware and around which they could structure their negotiating

strategy. Thk most profound division, of course, was the factional one that had been made

most public. Nevertheless, even if its bank account was meagre and its membership

increasingly disaffected, the Diserict Council still had in hand a strong rejection vote on

Stuart's offer. The Dismct Committee decided to use this vote as the basis of a n aggressive

plan to force Stuart out of his stand-pat posture and into cbnciliation. Q

Upon the union calling its recess, Stuart had sent out a bulletin to his clients for

circulation among workers with "a factual report of negotiations." Copies were to be

dismbuted to all employees or to h select number depending on the situation in each, '

i

E operation.40 When talks resumed on 24 June, the union first h i t Stuart with the 95 percen5;

rejection of his offer. It then took him to task for trying to undermine the ballot by

communicating to employees the precise stenographic record from negotiations, in violation 4

of the unfair labour practice provisions of the ICA Act. Since Smart refused supplementary 1. 9

negotiations, but had not yet included several categories i n his wage offer, the union told $B

.f '

him the next move on wages was his. The Disoict negotiators hoped to put Stuart on the

defensive and force him to apply for conciliation. Through subsequent meetings on the

same and following days, the union negotiators continued to push Stuart. They warned

that if he c,ontipued using the negotiation record for his own purposes they would invite in 0

union stewards, the press, or perhaps have the entire proceedings broadcast over public

As a prerequisite for a union counter proposal on wages, the committee demanded

an across-the-board industry proposal applicable to all employees including fallers,

cookhouse crews and.train crews. In addition, any settlement would have to be retroactive

to 20 June and include an extra adjustment for trainmen, and guaranteed hourly rates for

falling and shingle crews above the overall increase. All other union proposals, including

union security, would have to remain open for further negotiation, while Stuart would be

; required to drop his bonding proposal.42 Union strategy was charted by Pritchett at a 24

June committee meeting. If Stuart disagreed with these conditions, as he likely would,

then the committee would move to recess negotiations for a full Policy Committee meetiqg

and possible consultation with the membership. "If- we can make Stuart believe we are

going to take a strike vote," Pritchett conspired, "we rrright force him tg apply for

conciliation-this would be preferable to us applying."43

Why'was i t preferable? At this point, for the union to apply for conciliation was a

sure sign of weakness. Not only would it indicate to Stuait, and to all woodworkers, a

willing and active compliance with the obstructive terms of the amended ICA Act. As well,

once the union had initiated statutory conciliation proceedings under the Act, it would in .

- effect forfeit its ability to take a stnke vote until the full procedure had been concluded. If

the union could force Stuart to apply, i t could passively, comply with the Act without, -

forfeiting its authority with its membership to hoid a smke vote of questionable legitimacy

in the midst of proceedings. Given the relatively weak bargaining position of the union, it-

did not want to proceed through a conciliation board hearing without a strike vote, or at 3 0

least the threat of taking a strike vote, in its hand. Both sides in negotiations knew the

union was being structured

position at the starting gate.

into compliance with the law. They were now jockeying

The question of who applid to Mr. Fraser loomed large.

,

for

On 21 June, the day the District receivkd the results of the referendum ballot on

Stuart's offer, the District trustees released the long-awaited auditor's report on the alleged

missing funds. The District executive had been concerned about the impact of the report on

its campaign to build up the Fighting Fund, and so had withheld release as long as

possible. That strategy had so irked local 1-357 leaders, that they had taken legal action .

during the balloting to try to obtain a AS the District committee moved h

aggressively to push Stuart into conciliation with threats of. a strike vote, the New

Westminster executive, on 25 June, took action to refer the audit to a full local meeting, and

in light of the report's findings, to set up an investigatingcommittee, "this not-to conflict

with negotiations." This last proviso was undercut somewhat by a further,recommendation

from Alsbury that Fadling now attend alI meetings of the negotiating committee and all i

sessions with the industry s p ~ k e s m e n . ~ ~ On 28 June, George Mitchell, accompanied by

Fadling, took the local 1-357 request for a full investigation to the International Board i.

,. meeting in P ~ r t l a n d . ~ ~ C

B

Meanwhile negotiations continued in Vancouver op 29 June. The union refused to

move on its wage demand until ~ t u a r t met its prior cgditidns. Stuart refused even-to

discuss these conditions until he received a counter wage proposal. According to plan, 3 %

Dalskog thereupon announced that in view of the 95 percent rejection of Stuart's offer, and

the industry's refusal to agree to any of the "nion's conditions under which it had agreed to . .

make a counter offer, the Negotiating Committee would ask for a recess in negotiations to

call in the full Policy Committee and possibly consult with the member~h ip .~~ Immediately.

following that session, the Negotiating Committee reassembled with Ellery Foster from the i ,

International Research Department conspicuously in attendance for the first time. .Foster 5

was a professional forester as well as an avoweh anti-communist. He had worked for the

American War Production Board prior to coming to the IWA, and supplied much of the

material for the International d o programme, 'The Voice of the IWA.yya His presence in

Vancouver at this juncture pointed to a move by &e Lnternkional office, in conjunction with '

the white bloc, to take over control of the negotiations from'the District committee.

~ a l s k o ~ dutifully reviewed progress to$ate for Foster's benefit, and then proceeded to call

a full Policy Committee meeting for 2 July to consider the union's future c o ~ . ~ 9 t\J5- I

IT is difficult at this point to discern just whom balskog and h tche t t were trying to . - s

outflank, Stuart or the white bloc. The stated objective in the Negotiating Committee was \

to make Stuart believe they were intending a strike vote so he would immediately apply for

conciliation in an effort to undermine it. It is possible that Dalskog and Pritchett actually

had a strike vote in mind, but were trying to move toward it without arousing the white ~ j,

I ' bloc. In any case, whether it was further to impress Stuart with their*seriousness to pursue -

, e c L'

,the vute, or actually to prepare the grouridwork for taking one, the day following the 1 e

declaration of a recess, Dalskog and Pritchett met with Fred Smelts, emplbyer

representative on the LRB, and Bill Fraser, Chief Conciliation Officer. The LRB, only ,

recently formed, had as yet no machinery in place for taking a strike vote, especially one

that could involve thousands of woodworkers in hundreds of locations across the province. ca

Smelts asked the union for its position on a plan under which the Board might appoint a

District officer as chief returning officer with power to deputize other union officials in each

area. Appointment by the minister of a person to supervise a secret vote was provided for

under section 75 of the ICA Act (1947). Smelts' proposal would have allowed union

officials, under oath, to take their own vote as they always had. The knotty problem of

whether union officials could, under the IWA constitution, supervise a ballot which

g. included non-union employees, was overlooked i n these preliminary discussion^.^^

Smelts' proposal indcated to Pntchett and Dalskog that by virtue of its recent creation, and

the failure of the Department of Labour durir~g the previous year to establish appropriate 6

administrative machinery, the LRB was still largely dependent on union assistance in

carrying out the infamous supervised stnke ballot. That advantage might be uqed, together

-370-

with another loophole in the Act, to circumvent the intent of Bill 39 with respect to its

cooling-off provisions. The architects of the bill had intended that any strike vote taken u - must follow the issuance of a conciliation board report to both parties. But the wording of

I B

the Act was not specific on that point. It was emphatically clear that no smk; could occur

until after the report had been filed and until after a supervised strike vote of dl employees

affected had been taken: It nowhere stipulated that the strike vote had to occur & the

conciliation board report had bep filed. That employees were apparently to vote on the

report could have in pan obviated thzneed for such a stipulation, but not entirely. The Act -

was also vague on whether a full vote of employees was required on a report.

All of these highly obscure legal points would not be tembly relevant here were it di

not for the fact that they became important issues w i h n the District Policy Committee as it

Y-; tned to chart a path between the provisions of the ICA Act, and the obstructive tactics of the'

white bloc. The ambiguity of the Act with respect to the timing of the vote, taken together

with the LRB's dependence on the union for supervision, suggested to Pritchett and

Dalskog that their ability to take a strike vote on their own terms, or at least to threaten to do

sop had not been entirely removed by the passage of Bill 39, provided that there was unity

on the committee around pursuing such a tactic. A strike vote in hand would certaidy give

the union more leverage over the outcome of conciliation hearings.

That this s-trategy was not so farfetched was indicated to Pritchett by the fact that in

a r e c p t dispute at the Silbak Premier mine, Mine Mill, under Murphy's direction,

announced it was proceeding unilaterally to take a strike vote without applying for

government supervision. In subsequent negotiations with the union, the LRB agreed to

appoint a union officer as returning officer. This case indicated to Pritchett that the

conciliation machinery could still be circumvented by a union whose membership was

willing to back its leaders in pursuit of militant and creative tactics without fear of possible n

legal ramifications.51 There were, nowever, significant differences i h h e two cases which

Pritchett could not for long overlook. Mine Mill had a.solid union shop at Premier, and

, \

\

any vote of employees affected was synonymous with a union vote. The same would not , *

apply across the fimber industry where large pockets, of non-union employees existed.52

Secondly, Mine Mill did not have to contend with an opposition faction in its midst, intent

on discrediting its leaders' ability to pursue collective bargaining to a successfu~ t

*:

cooc~usion. All these-considerations were still somewhat academic on 30 June, however.

At this point the committee still had the intention of forcing Stuart to apply for conciliation

' under threat oY a strike vote. If it was successful with that, the cormhittee might then

consider whether actually to proceed to a vote, depending ori the outcome of talks under a 9.F

conciliation officer's supervision.

" To help turn up the heat on Stuart, on 30 June the B.C. Lumber Worker ran three

" front page stories designed to project an impression of d ~ i t a n t determination and strike

readiness. ~ L s t , the paper claimed that the New wkstminster charges with regard tou

District finances had been exploded inasmuch as the summary balance sheet of the

indep$ndent audit differed from tHe TURB audit by the insignificant amount of $72 for the

year"1f146-47. The article noted that the accountants could not substantiate any charges of n 8 t

e misuse of funds, and concluded that the lscovery of a $72 discrepancy did not warrent the I

expenditure of $16 15 for an audt undertaken on the basis of "irresponsible and derogatory

charges." ~ n d to confirm the fact that the;e chikges had been misplaced and without effect

on the membership, just besidel,the caumn on the audlt, the editor ran q upbeat regort 2.)

headed "Strike Fund Meets Wide Response." It claimed that qlready a considerable number * 0 fi %

9 . , A

of coast camps had exceeded their quotas, in some cases, by as much as 200 percent.

Check-offs foNuly promised better results. All of this good news was heant to back up " e t

the featwe story that, with food prices leaping skyward and the bosses stalling on wages,. e

the "Union's patien9 is Weking Thin." A victory in 1948 negotiadon<, readers were PC

informed. "may yet demand a showdown action by the Coast membership of the w A : " ~ ~

None of this news was terribly pleasing to Fadling. He, along with Virgil Burtz, % 3 4 4

- International Diredtor of Research, was back in town f o g ' b 2 July District Policy b

Committee meeting called to decide the union's next tactical move. Dalskog opened the C ,d - 1

meeting by stating he believed Stuart was attempting to force the union to apply for -

conciliation. To counter that move, Dalskog proposed to offer Stuart a settlement at 27;

cents (down from the original 35 cent demand), on condition that it be retroactive to 20

June, apply to all workers, and be paid on an hourly basis to piece workers. Further, to

get that offer, Stuart would have to agree to a five-shift work week (now extended to

Saturday eight A.M. from Friday midnight), drop his bonding proposal, continue

negotiations on the union shop, and agree to have a subcommittee of union and

management study the welfare fund proposal as a basis :G filrthcr ixgoiiations the next

year. After presenting Stuart with this proposal, which he certainly would not accept, the

union would take it to the membership. Pritchett supported the proposal, noting that i t

materially strengthened the union's position with the general public and should be followed

up with a real campaign amongst the membership and in the community, exposing Stuart's

stalling tactics. He suggested the normally bi-weekly Lumber Worker come out weekly

during this period.

At this point, Fadling stepped in to dump cold water over the union's new initiative.

While he agreed with most of the programme, Fadling announced that he had definitely

disagreed with the last ballot, presumably because of its association with building up the

Fighting Fund. Furthermore, just as the union was about to pick up its publicity effort to

rally support for a programme Fadling claimed he agreed with, the International President

announced that in view bf the recent trustees' report on the audit to the District Executive

and the article about it in the Lumber Worker, use of the International time slot on UOR

would cease for the time being. Fadling was not about to have the "Voice of the IWA" be

used to rally the rank-and-file for a strike vote around a set of District One demands that

were still quite attractive to workers on the job. The implications of this move were clear.

The District was in for another earful of International red-baiting over the radio waves.

Apparently forgetting conveniently who had first raised the issue of District financial

minagement in the midst of the recent executive elections, Fadling made his intention B

known. It was a mistake to publish the results of the District audit when "in death-grips

with the employer," he informed the Policy Committee. Raising these issues was harmful,

but once raised they had to be answered. The meeting then ended with a report from

Dalskog on the meeting with Smelts and Fraser. It was decided that the District officers

would investigate the matter of strike vote supervision and report to the quarterly council

meeting on 18

That evening with the full Policy C o d i t t e e sitting in, the Dismct negotiators

presented the new offer to the employers' representatives. The meeting ended quickly with

Stuart rejecting most of the union's pre-conditions to its wage proposal item by item.55

The District was not ready to take its case to the public. Fadling beat it to the punch.

The next day in a column written by Jark W e b ~ t e r ? ~ it was announced that a f o h -

man committee named by Fadling was set to investigate the finances of the British

Columbia District following charges made by local' 1-357 that more than $9000 was

unaccounted for in the 1946-47 statements. The column went on to quote a statement

issued by Fadling to the Vancouver & in response to the story in the B.C. Lumber

Worker. "What seems odd to me," Fadling told Webster, "is the fact that the district

officers knew that we intended to make this investigation within the organization when they

came out with the public statement trying to absolve themselves of charges which were

never made:" He noted that the International ha intended to investigate these internal ! matters quietly, in order to protect the funds of the membership as well as the integrity of '

the District oificers, and regretted that the latter had chosen t o rpake the matter public

beforehand, "as it is liable to have adverse effects upon present wage and contract

With these comments of Fadling's, union intentions to force Stuart into applying for , \- ,

conciliation under threat of a possible stnke vote were seriously damaged. The internal .

6 cleavage in the union had once again shown its ugly head to the world, thi' time a critical

juncture in negotiations. Two days later, when Dalskog, Pritchett, Cslyle, Higgin and

Melsness together with Alsbury and Fading, all sat down at the table across f q m Bloedel,.

Stuart md his associates, t!!e err?ployes', representrrtives mlzst hwe been grinning inside.

After a brief flurry of activity following its rejection ballot, the ~ i sm%t% offensive had

suddenly been derstiled, before it really got underway. Fadlipg, togetherwith his &search C

department, and supported by Alsbury and his white bloc, was poised to take over the

negotiation process as a prelude to> possible take-over of the District Council itself. For ' P I(

the District leaders, the collective bargaining process had suddenly become not just a

.gruggle for uniod security, compensatipn for steeply escalating living costs, and against

the union busting provisions of the amended ICA Act. On the line now was their very

survival as bargaining agents for the British Columbia woodworkers. If Fadling and

compny could take over control of the colle&e bargaining process, the very flesh and

bones of any trade union, they were well on their way to conifolling Dismct Council One. . \

' The meeting lasted less than an hour. kart was fm. He was feeling no pressure . ,

from anyone but his clients wha insisted that there be rro further offer on wages until the . . C

8'

&ion dropped completely its demand for a union shop and accepted that a welfare plan was Q

not on tpe collective bargaining agenda at a11.58 Meeting . - immediately afterward, the . * c; r 'P

Negotiating Committee heard Dalskog, in despeiation, hnce again t ~ y to charkbe course ' -. - ahead: charge Stuart with bad faith bargaining, call in the 'empl rectl y , a r r a s a

* 3

province-wide broadcast, explain the situation to the members y will demand a A ~ -

G-

\ smke vote. But d i s c u s w f strategy quickly gave way to mutual recriminations over the w .

recent publicity regarding District finances. Melsness finally got the committ.ee back on

track by observing ere Laying far from the business df " o ~ i ~ ~ r ~ program as %

to negotiations, but the big headlines in the Sun has defigtely da@@t of €3

h-" It was the to adopt Dalskog's suggested propolal 0fq5 cen?& ,

hour, and a modified union shop gving current non-members permanent exclusion.59 ,'

During the next four days negotiations proceeded apace, but the District &~nmittee 0

had lost any momentum it thought it had at the end of June. Over the course of these four

days, Ritcheit and Dalskog dropped from u'union shop td3alskog9s modified proposal,

then-offered binding arbitration and finally non-binding conciliation on the issue. In the

process, Stuart went up one more cent on his floor to 11 cents, or eightprcent, effective

, the date of acceptance. Meanwhile, Fadling quite deftly insinuated himself into the . . d

hegotiation process. While the District members of the committeeharnrnered away at Smart

bn the main items, to no avail, Sman and Fadling tried to move the stalled talks forward on ~

the less consequential matters. Fadling fit himself into what had been Smart's approach

from the start: settle the secondary items first, as a basis for final agreement on the major 21

ones. This approach earned the of Alsbury who told the 9 July meeting of his i

. . local executive that he thought "-we anifortunate" to have Fadling at negotiations, Just who

the "we" referred to Alsbury did not make clear.

At the 8 July negotiating meeting, after Dalskog and Stuart wrangled over cost-of- .

living figures to no avail, Fadling piped up with, "Let us see how far apart we are. We

have w e a counterproposal for piece-workers," (allowing individual employees to opt out

of an hourly rate) "which should remove the employers' objection: ..anQ. should be 4 -

- followed by a counterproposal on wages." The following day, Stuart conceded. the - 4

- principle of a uniform increase to apply to all occupations, including cook and bunkhouse

-. .-., workers, When' Stuart suggested that both sides'drop their hours-of-work proposals, and

write the 1947 clause back, into the agreement, Fadling exclaimed, "now we are getting

somewhere," even though the day before the union had, in Fadling's own estimations, , .

"already come a long way" on its hours demand. J

But even Fadling could not get around Stuart on union security; indeed he had no

desire to. If District One won union sec& under a defiant communist leadership,

Fadling's position on compliahce with Taft-Hartley would be materially weakened; as

would the position of his British Columbiasupporters. ,He let Stuart know where he stood 1

* 0 -

? on the mader by-predicting that "the day will cope when we will have full union shop here

and the Employers will say they are glad of it." Obviously for Fadling and for Stuart; that

day was not at hand.@ -

I

U o f y a t e l y for Fadling, Stuart would go no funher on wages until the committee

dmpped union security. Both Stuart and Dalskog knpw that the union could not strike over

wages alone, especially if Sntvt responded with an expected 12kcent offer. Once union a

kurity was Clropped entirely, any oppdrmnity of using a strike vote to put pressure on the

industry or on a conciliation board disappeared with i t That might have been fme 'with h

- Fadling and Alsbury, but not with the rest of thekommittee. Even Fadfing, sensing Stuart

was taking advantage of a situation h the union he himself had her@ b;ing about, blurted

out, "we have a right to lolow what wecan get by dropping our proposal&that is only 4

{air. We hold you responsible for a d & . l o ~ k ' " ~ Dalskog then played hischanti, but got

no further. - : Dalskog: Let's call a spade a spade. You are using an unknown wage

\

increase as bait. 4- Stuart: That is exactly how it was done last year.

, Dalskog: But last year we gained the 40 hour week. This year oothing.6i #-

After sitting in session with Stuart all morning and afternoon, the union committee @

retired to its chambers briefly to hear Pritchett give his prognosis. Since Stuart would not

budge; nor be pressured into applying for conciliation, the union had no choice but to apply

- for conciliation itself, or take a strike vote.$ In '1947, an unsupervised vote in so-called u'

def~ance~ of the conciliation provisions of the law had not worked. The 1948 strategy called r

for "massaging" (my term) the ICA Act and the LRB in order to get a "legal" vote, but on --.

the union's terms. Pritchett felt &&certain that the issue of supervision was not a .s

sticking point with the LRB, based on his conversation with Smelts, and on the &fine Mill

example at Premier. Interpreting rather liberally (Alsbury asked him 'to get it in writing), %

Pritchett told the committee that the Board had definitely stated "a union can take a strike

vote within the law, but can't use it until all legal angles are complied with." For Pritchett, '2

I

.&

-377- - - - ,-

that was about as far as the union could hope to go in 1948. But it was'better than the

"nothing" that Dalskog had observed they had gotten so far. Taking a strike vote would

" not interfere with either negotiations or mnciliation, Pritchen assured the white bl - - TI

members. "But this vote will materially strengthen our hand, although both $&art *

ourselves knob that it would be &st impossible to s&e now.'"

But a strike vote, even hedged in by all Pritchen's assurances, was a weapon the

white bfoc was loathe to put in the District Executive's hands. Alsbury a d not trust the

executive not to use the vote in contravention of the law. More to the point, if the District

won a settlement in excess of 12; cents by virtue of "defj4ng9' the ICA Act, then it would

tend to vindicate their entire posifjon on cbmpliance with Taft-Hartley, on the Greenall - &, the Fadling recall and on Northern Wiishington's allegedly superior settlement in the

American negotiations. As long as District One was reasonably well assured of gaining the

equivalent of the northwest regionai increase through total compliance with the law, then

the white bloc and Fadling would oppose a strike vote that might give any extra ad;antage

to the District Negotiaing Cormniwe.

By 13 July, both Smart and the District c o 6 a g r e e . d that negotiations were . ' deadlocked. Final sutmissions had been made and a recess declared on *e understanding -

that the present contract would remain in krce until terminated by either ~ ide .6~ The

Dismct's position was clear. It would notify the Minister of Labour, Wismer, that

negotiations had broken down, and that the District Policy Cornmitt& was proceeding

immediately to conduct a strike vote. If Pritchett's sc&ario proved correct, theZRB would ' 9

move quickly to sanction the vote, While deputized union offieals conducted the ballot,

- government-initiated conciliation p e e d i n g s would begin. For this strategy to work, it

*as absolutely vital that Fadling and the New Wesrminster.1am.l de on-side. It would be *

difficult enough getting a strong vote hnder current conditions without their organized

opposition to the procedure. 'During three crucial meethigs on 13 and 14 JI&, the District 4

Policy Committee tried ta hash out a compromise on a strike ballot that would both be

acceptable to the white bloc and would give the union some real bargaining powex during b -

conciliatioa 0

Alsbury and Fadling refused to give hitch; what he o p G y wanted, a ballot

authizhg ?he Policy Committee to take whatever action it deemed necessary to achieve the * . - .P 8

union's demands. Once sanctioned by the LRB, such a vote could stand as a club over a & -.j

'r i

conciliation board to be used immediately in the event of an adverse g m r t Even without "

0

LRB approval, such a vote ~ u l d exert pressure on a settlement provided the m o n stood

solidly behind it. Alsbury immediately declared his inability to vote for anything contrary

to the law without further instructions from his local. Even if the vote were legd, he feared

it could be used illegally. Fadling noted how m y times it had been said that the W A

could not itself challenge the ICA Act; though he admitted such a ballot might be acceptable

if it were only being usedato force the operators into conciliation. Pritchett pulled out the

Act and began reading all the pertinent sections to do with conciliation boards, reports,

strike votes, legal and illegql strikes. Dalskog then took over, reading further on

supervision of votes, and provisions concerning conciliation officers, boards, and pre-

strike votes. All of this textual analysis ought to have plebsed Alsbury, The previous year

Pritchett had gone to his I d and urged the employees at Fraser Mills to defy the law by

voting for a smike.65 Now, thanks in part to Alsbury's work in oppsing that strategy,

members of the District Policy Committee got to witness the spectacle of the two top

officers of the District pouring over sections of the despised ICA Act in an effort'to

convince them that, in fact, the identical strike vote in 1948 would be very much in

compliance with the law. Alsbury waited politely for the readings to end and then replied \

&at "nothing you read has convinced me we e m legally take a vote."

When the meeting reconvened later in the aftemwn, Pritchett and Dalskog got - ----

down to business. Ritchett read the draft of the telegram to Wismer notifying him of the .

vote. Dalskog laid the District's position out clearly for all to see. Twelve and one-half

cents would be the most they could get in return for dopping all other demands. The

commim could not possibly ~comm6n"d that to the membership, nor could it present a real

s&e threat once only wags remained to be settled. "S ether we like ibor no the next

move is ours." Jpplicit in Dalskog's remarks was a challenge to Fadling and Alsbury

ey would be pleased if the current negotiations epded with a settlemqnt of

thing el&, or dmp their objections to the ball& Neither ~lsb-& nor

Fadling were barefaced enough to adnjt their iniention to prevent District One from

exceeding the American ceiling, but neither we& they prepared to smnder their defence of

absolute compliance with the law, fast becoming the touchstone of legitimate bargaining

authority throughout the North American trade union movement -

Alsbury's next move in' thjs elaborate game of industrial relations chess was to

agree in theory to strike for union shop, a decent wage and all the rest of .the union's

proposals if the Policy Committee would agree to comply with all procedures laid down by

the ICA Act prior to striking, and to provide copies of the meeting minutes where this Z -

condition was accepted to all Policy Committee members. Given Pritchett's current

interpretation of the Act, proviW the vote was sanctioned by the LRB, the District vice- - as -

president was to go ahead on the basis of Alsbury's suggestion. When Higgin,

from the Courtenay logging local, queried Alsbury as to whether the committee would be

bound by his motion if the union was abut to be "smashed" if it did not strike, Pritchett

quickly moved to shut him up by noting that in such an event the Policy Committee would

meet towconsider the situation. Now, Pritchett rushed on, the committee should pass the

motion unanimously and go out and use all its strength to get a 1Wpercent vote. Fading,

however, had not been swept along. Picking up on Mtchett's quick reply to Higgin, he 1

demanded &t the mirnbership must have a say in any change of policy, particularly

considering the internal situation in the union, and the fact that the laws in the Urrited States

had writtmuut union maintenance clauses where unions had violated the labour act. b

Pritchett, seeking unity at all costs, proposed that Fadling, Dalskog and himself meet

privately to try to thrash out a policy that the committg could follow and-be bound by. To .

- add further reassurance, when discussion arose as to the effectiventss of stopwork

meetkgs to take the vote,'l)alskog quickly &ed that the takng of this ballot be done in a

manner above reproach. A subcommittee of three.tHiggin, Nsbury and Carlyle-were

elected to draft the pecise wording of the ballof66 ,

With the wik announcing the strike vote on its way to Wismer, the pgotiating

Committee'reconvened the following morning to he& b m the subcommittee.

half of the ballot there was no disagreement-the employers' offer, yes or

bottom half, Higgin and Carlyle had recommended: "bo you authorize your District Policy

Committee to call a strike when and if it becomes neckssary?" Alsbury wanted it worded

- . I so that a strike could only be called by a unanimous vote of the Policy Committee. As an

alternative, Alsbury would submit a written statement to the secretary to sign

. outlining the conditions under which he would support a statement was

apparently so outrdgeous that even Fading advised the rewording of certain phrascs. a

Pritchett suggested that only "Brother AIsbury," not the committee, need sign the

' statement The ballot st& as worded. But, to provide some semblance of unity, a motion .

was carried incorporating the concerns of both Alsbury and Fadling that the conhittee 7

would comply with the brocedure laid out in the ICA Act, and in case of unforeseen

developm;nts would return to the membership for further instruction "prior to further

d o n on an industry-wide basis." Moreover, copies of the meeting minutes were to be

sent to all members of the committee and to. the secretiries of all locals. Alsbury, Carlyle

and Higgin were elected as thi official tabulating committee.67

While Pritchett had been enthusiastic to proceed on the basis of Alsbury's more

general condition of the day before, that all procedures of the ICA Act be complied with

Mure striking, he appeared iess enthralled with the motion that came out of the 14 July

session. Pritchett was prepared to negotiate his way through the various loopholes in the

Act At any rate, no serious consequences would ensue unless a strike were actually called

on the basis of the vote, an event he considered unlikely. The purpos /"- of the Aote for

1

.s.

Ritchett was to secure forihe union a weapon to help speedalong praceahgs and exert \ <

pressure on any recommendations flowing out of them. To fulfillibat purpose, at least the '

of a strike had to be real. Hedged in by the requirement of full consultation with the ' ..

membership prior to being utilized in any manner that might possibly be &nstrued to be inN v

wntraven tion of the Act, the-current ballot would be next to useless. Once these conditions

had been thoroughly publicized throughout the locals; as Alsbury and in^ would

ensure they were, the operators would be apprised of the hollowness of the union's move, . .

6 and of the obvious lack of unity aedmst .- arounithe District sqategy. what is more, even -u * . 3, . +

with Alsbury's suppa, there was some risk that the iote would *&be okThelmi'nglye . *

\ &trmative. It hardly seemed worth taking that risk for a strike ballot that would give If& \ - or no real advantage to the ~is t r ic t Committee. In addition,'the District still had the " =

2 - . International investigating cdinrnittee breathing down its neck. Meetings held on 12 and 15

July with the District Executive had not been pleasant and indicated that wire the bistrict A

i

committee to try anything the least out of step with the law, the full force of the

International's red-baiting propaganda would be unleashed on it once again. With the

District quarterly council meeting only four days away, and locals 1-217, 1-7 1 and 1-85 . calling once again for Fadling's resignation over his Vancouver Sldn statement on the audit;

Pritchett, Dalskog and associates were doing some fast thinking.b8

Already, in late June, as the battle over the audit raged, the District Executive h d

taken tentative steps to assert its autonomy with respect to the ~nt&aticnal. Failing some . ' , , A

mutual agreement on a cdnstructive organizing policy in British Columbia, in line with the

~ i s t&t programme, the District Council aff'~med it-would establish its own organizing' - .

'department This action had. been prompted by. Brown's dismissal of three organizers -in ' d

_I

January and his subsequent.appointment of six new'htemational . . organizers loyal to <,

Portland. In addition;the District Executive m e d a'broiid,can&ign to open the border 4-

to trade union delegations. It that& line wiih h e 1947 conyention resolution to B 9

a] make ~nternkonal conventions biannual, the 1948 meeting tk postponed until border

i 7.

restrictions were U%d. The scheduling df the Portland convention, quite intentionally it '

L - appeared, on the same dates as the CCL convention, only addedh@t to injury.@ The

disastrous course of coast contract negotiations brought the whole matter. to a hgad at the +

- July quarterly council meeting. To interfere with District o r g m g policy and to

* cooperate with the government in excluding British Columbia delegates from participation -%

in conventions was had enough-but not sufficient to cause-a real break. International - 1 u

inteaerence in the collective bargaining process, desighed to hamper and ultimately *

discredit the District negotiating comrnittge and enhancfle position of the white //

/ , bloc/Fadling coalition on a programme of compliance with the "slave laws" was too much \

to tolerate. From control of District organizing, and now . District . collective bargaining, it

was a short step to conml of the6istrict Executive.

The only effective means the District had of fighting the opposition and maintaining

its position with the rank-and-file was to demonstrate its effectiveness in the collective

bargaining pmcess. Since the spring of 1947, District leaders had been endeavouring, with

mixed results, to consolidate ties with various sections of the rank-and-file over collective

bargaining issues by pushing against an increasingly restrictive industrial relations system.

To carry that struggle forward required an element of unity. Since 1947, the ~adling/white

bloc coalition had worked to undermine that unity by play&g on the mistakes of the 1946

strike and on fear amongst the rank-and-file that non-compliance with the law would

ultimately cost the union much that it had gained over past years. By July 1948 the District

Committee had been-reduced to the level of bickering over the wording of a strike ballot

that it knew it probably never could use for purposes other than merely threatening job -\

action. WhaFsbury and Fadling succeeded in defusing even the threat of a strike, the

Qnict Executive cErew the h e . h

The 18 July quarterly District Council meeting was asked to pass two main

resolutions. The two were tightly connected. The first order of business was a motion to

apply for conciliation immediately and to hold in abeyance the taking of a strike vote. Thez

nd order of business was the passage of a motion demanding the restoration ~\full - -

autonomy, the cessati terference from International officers, the immediate

Athdrawal of International organizers appointed without consultation of the British . / - - \

Colum@ia membership, and finally, the resignation of International Resident James

Fadling. If these demands were rejected, as they obviously would be, the District Council -

was instructed to take whatever steps it deemed necessary to protect the membership and -

save the union. '.

Ddskog gave a lengthy accoun! of the negotiation

i d support both of these items of business. .In detail '3

Alsbury's obstructive tactics ak the Policy Committee moved *ard a strike vote. Dalskog

acknowledged that a long shutdown o w the wihter, the flood d now the fire season had a all played into the employers' hands. Moreover, hi had the hended ICA Act at his

disposal "and all the reactionaries inside the Government behind him." But, Dalskog

added, "I think we have to be frank about Wsl the fact of the ktter is that the question

that has been raised by 357 in regards - to the finances of this District and the suspicion that - ,

has been cast upon the integiity of the District in regard to this matter, has &ted /

dissention and argument that is favourable to the employer." The forces aligned against the / union, the President continued, realized that it was the largest in the province an

backbone of the economy. They realized that "this union had led the fight not o #El /

/

economic front but also on the political h n t in fighting for favourable legisla$on." The

' employers would be quite bppy, he warned, if they 'could manoeuvre this unbn into a 'i

- situation where they could remgve =-- the leadership of District One "and start the process of

disintegration of this organizatior? In view of dl these conditions, and in view of the B

conditions laid down by Alsbuqaand Fadling that "we.proceed through @l provisions of f

the ICA Act prior to a strike ;otec'being used, and possibly need another 'official' strike

vote," he moved that the District Council apply for conciliation and hold the strike vote in

a bey ance .

G a g e Mitchell, not onc-rn back down from a fighk jumped up and demanded that

in view of the publicity aiready given to the intended strike vote, someone must take

responsibility for the change in District policy. Pritchen shot back, that Mitchell must, for

one. Pritchett then reviewed the history of the last few months, including, during District

elections, the press a d radio campaign of the bosses that had been generated out of white

bloc charges of missing h d s . Who was responsible f& the scuttling-of the strike vote?

Alsbury and otfiers who engaged radio time to smear District officers, was Pritchett's short

answer. The employer could now afford to stall, concluded Pritchett, because he was

happy that within the previously united ranks of&e IWA there was now "a weakness

displayed" The District Executive had requested the ~nttmation$ to withhold its "so-called / -

investigation: until after the contract was signed, he reminded, rather than.add more.f;el to

S t m ' s fire. Instead, Fadling made a public statement relative to the investigation and its.

purpose. Pritchett then proceeded to give his lecture on t h d ' 1 ~ ~ Act. The LRB, he noted,

&as much concerned as to how it w d d possibly fake a vote of members in this industry

because it would take an army of people to do it. The only possib1.e way for the mion to

take a vote would be to rely on the active membership in each operation. Under the ICA

Act, the government had set up a cooling-off period designed to aid employers throGgh its e

dampening effect on workers. This conciliation procedure could @y-be shortened, '9

Pritcheu urged,,

by a Union that is prepared to go out and fighi for the prefervat& of the best interests of the workers militantly, who recognizes@at the law has

%. been established by a Government hostile to labour, doing the bidding of big business, placing restrictive laws upon the Statute Books; an organization that recognizes such a situation, that is prepared not to be.so regidistic minded that they consider that every lefter of the law must be h W M , a l a w &atismadem behalfoftkbigbttsiness.

by proceeding militantly to take a strike vote regardless of the law. It was up to the

&bership to take the lead in spedmg up the process of conciliation and voting, and so

undermine h e advantage to the employer that had been built into the Act. Alsbury meekly

responded that the only proper way to remove the obnoxious sections of the Act was by

voting out the people responsible for writing it. It was correct to comply with the Act, he

said, in order to get public support.zO

That last exchange between Ritchen and Alsbury expressed suc&ctly the essential

rift in the union. It took the appearance of partisan conflict between LPP and CCF ,'

supporters over the &sue of political action. With its base in the trade I union movement, the ,

LPP naturally ran up against the CCF with its focus on the legislative and electoral process.

But underlying %at surface phenomenon was an essential difference over the relationship

between the, economic and the political struggle, which divided the two camps in the IWA

in a much more immediate way than did party affiliation. While the woodworkers' union %

passed through the AFL on its way to the CIO, its roots were in a much more militant, if

not syndicalist tradition. That connection was not so traceable through individual leaders as

it was through the traditions and customs of the job, particularly in logging. Pritc&ett, l" i

Dalskog, Bergren and others had -worked hard in the early years to harness that "syndicalist

beast" and tie it to a new, disciplined mode of trade unionism within the more highly-

organized structures that resulted from state intervention in the industrial .relations process.

They spent many long months, if not years, campaigning amongst legislators, and amongst , a

the rank-and-file, to generate support for a "Canadian Wagner Act." By July 1948, when

he stood before District delegates and denounced the legalism of the white bloc, it must

have occmed to Pritchett that he had hvelled a long way in the course of a decade; but so -. -

had the law and the industrial relations apparatus that he had so ardently championed during

the dying days of the New Deal, The white bloc leaders were the natural successors to the 1

. Alsbury and Mitchell, in thought if not in person, represented a different strain that

had also come into the early CIO structure. They, like Philip Murray and others,

essentially embraced the pure-and-simple trade unionism of the American Federation of . -,

/ pp --- -

- >--: /

Labour, and displayed a dislike for political ihw. The political alliance between the CIO -n 1, . % -

and the ~e&tic party during the RooseVeIt e q m d to a lesser extent betwear the CJa ,

i - 8 2 -

and the CCF parliamentary wing in Canada during the war, s&ed to mask, and $be

same time reinforce, the fundamental aversion th@ these trade uniodsts 8 9

of economic and political issues._ During the 1946-48 shakedown of the - -

, these basic differences in appsoach to trade union practice were fmced to the surface once - . * t 1.

again. They were differences that were rooted in the @st-war world, not only in global

confrontation between American imperialism and Soviet socialism, but r n k fundamentally . J

in perceptions of the relationship between labour and capital. For ~ritchett, that

plationship was not static, but one that could be at least altered an<]-reorganized, if not @

- completely abolished, through-continuous struggle. For Alsbury, Fadling and the like, the

I,

class relationqhip was an essentially fixed, unalterable structure within which organized

labur had won a place. Their job was to maintain it. If in the context of post-war reaction .F @

that meant compliance with the "yellow-dog slave-law," then cbmply they would, in the

interests of the working class. For the District cadre who had built the IWA in British + 9

Columbia, compliance m&nt retreat, and retreat within a dynamic model of class relations

was the precursor to defeat. Rather than sit back and watch their hard-won achievements

be destroyed by a coalition of industrial capitalists and pure-and-simple trade unionists, . they w m prepared to risk all and start again hrn scratch. The period from July to October '.

l-.

1948 would see them travel the road to severing cowctions with both the mainstream \. '

labour movement, and the legalistic industri6Telations st&ur& within which they-had

carried out that struggle for over a decade. Dalskog started the process in motion with his -

announcement in the L u m k Worker that the District had applied for conciliation and was

holding & strike vote in abeyance: "This i s not-a retreat, but an offensive in another 4

direction.. .The time will come when we'll disregard the legalistic 'letter of the law'

approach to the ICA Act, But first we've got to have full unity in our ranks.''71

To recount with too h c h detail*e events which transpired between the July and . . * -

Oct6ber quarterly District &.uncil m@ngs would, at this pain< be anti-climactic. It is 2 P h ,

important to emphasize; however, that the decision to form a new independent Canadian +% -

\

union of woodworkers did not have its genesis solely in the heads of prphdql c d u n i ~ t - - ( .

- 3% * conspirators, nor was it simply a re@nse to a ~CL-CCF-white bloc attack against the left- .+=

wing of the ~rit ish Cplumbia labour movement. 1rving Abella, in his ' I\r ?-

carefully traces the role of CCL operatives, in ~onjunction~with the

systematically eliminating the communist 1eadersQp in British Columbia. But m

\ approach completely igriores the fundamental issues of industrial relations and collective

bargabkng, Abella cannot explain fully the decision taken at the 3 Octbber ~istri6t Council .. meeting.' Similarly, Lembcke and Tattum overlook the .particular industrial relations

history of the woodworkers in British Columbia They try to e ~ p l a i n ~ d i ~ l i a t i o n anly in

terms of a response to the anti-communism emanating from an International white bloc s"

gripped by a cold-war hysteria that reinforced its own iqherent conservatism2 As much as C

the insights of these authois of valueLn constructing a total picture, they do not explain I \

the formation of the Woodworkers' Industrial Union of Canada.

The split in the IWA was piimarily about two different visions of -trade unionism.

The decision to form a dual union was taken out of frustration. By the summer of 1948, -

the Pritchett-Dalskog leadership could proceed no further wi@ its trade union agenda.

These men could either change their-programme or change their union. Neither choice was +-"

particularly satisfactory. There was not a dear consensas as to how far and how fast to 4 ..,

proceed. But by k l y the wheels were in motion. The evints of the ensuing &ks'only

accelerated them.

The resolution passed at the 18 July District Council meeting amounted to a .- . . * declaration of open warfare. With the strike vote shehed inde&tely, the contract dispute

proceedhig to conciliation, and the District calling for Fadling'serekignation, all pretences of . - unity were dropped. WithEIIeg Foster's assistance, the "Voice of the IWA" took to the

air on- 19 July, seeking to establish the legitimacy of the white bl& askpresentative of the I

3

true interests of British Columbia woodworkeq, and of the ~ublic at large. *

The international's bmkkast outlined the devastating liquidation of the province's - . ' S .

forests in the interests of p f i t , a trend only to be enhanced by the so-called sustained yield. -- Ep.

plan of Gordon Sloan. These same huge corporations that were refusing to make a dece~fP,

contract settlement with the WA, were also refuskg to ~ractisk scientific forestry. '+he B

greed and recklessness of these f m s were causing people to adapt radi~al'pditical~

solutions. "People wouldn't become communists or socialists,'-' the "Voice"'to1d its, w

listeners, "if the free enterprise system would do a decent job of -aging its Geat '

industries. Workers wouldn't turn to communism if the employers gave'them the wages

and benefits that their labour produces.': The IWA would continue its~efforts to stile the

negotiations without a stoppage if possible, and to save the forests and get them under

proper management, the "Voice" pledged3 *

If the International was to succeed in taking the union away from the current -,

leadership, it could not, apparently, do so merely by discrediting the integrity of the District

Executive. <It also had to offer a positive and attractive programme of its own to the

wocrdworkers, to demonstrate .a real alternative trade union leadership. In this respect

~ k i l i n ~ and the International officers had more finesse than the New Westminster bl&. - *:

Fadling had done a credible job in negotiations. On the committee, he had guided

Akbury's performance, attempting to curtail his excesses. The International "Voice" was . = :

qdte adept at packaging the anti-communist line within a constructive, trade union

0

pFogmme, be it.with respect to foresky policy or collective bargaining strategies.

to be skillful to counter the egms of the District Council's chief labour intellect, Al.Pa.kin. . .,,

. . Parkin was in charge of the Educational I?epartment, put together the "Green Gold" .

. +

broadcasts, and was editof of the Lumber W o r k . He had the ability to express co&lei .

- historical and theoretical questions in language that was accessible to the rank-and-file.

u C During July, Parkin ran a s e d o f three articles h thi union paper entitled "Whatls

Happening in the CIO." In the first two, he explored the history of the &O'S imo1veme.t - with the New Deal, the coming of Taft-Hartley, and the, Fuckling-under of union leaders

to a policy of pure-and-simple unionism. On 28 July, he began his third installment with

the challenging declaration that any examhiation of CIO and CCL policy'in 1948 revealed P

certain alanning features which only served "to underline the need far some coun&r action

by &;tank-and-file membership that will restore the splendid traditions p d policies of the a

past." After criticizing the CCL for its anti-corm+mst campaign, and its support of the \

Libeqj government's austerity plan and "big business" foreign policy, Parkin went on to

revive @e whole debate around,District Two's non-compliance with Taft-Hartley. The

results of negotiations in the American districts had Eoven the wisdom of that move. 1 . i

Northern Washington walked off with 12; cents, othei category increases, plus an

irrevocable check-off of dues. In exchange they voluntarily surrendered the union shop f

provision in some cases in order to avoid dangerous entanglements with Taft-Hartley. The

other districts, which thought they were being so-clever in protecting their bargaining

agency status by complying, were now suffering the consequences: "After backing down

on a-question of basic trade union principle ... they now find themselves having to back

down on the fight for wages and+conditi~ns."~ . .

'Claude Ballard, International Assistant Director of Organization, was quick to "" '

I

answer Parkin's charges in a 15-minute broadside over CTOR radio on 9 August, whic

was given full coverage in the Vancouver &Q. After defending both the Marshall P1

and the CIO-CCL support for it,qallard went on to answer Parkin's charges concerning = 7

the northwest regional negotiations. Bad as the Taft-HartlefAct was, it continued to

provide for recognition of trade unions as bargaining agents, Ballard reminded. Moreover, 5%

it went beyond The Wagner Act and gave all unions complying with its terms the right to

secret ballot election on certification votes. While compliant districts were getting union

-390-

shop clauses and protecting earlier gains, District Two lost its maintenance of me&bership s .

clause gained during the war. Ballard concluded: "It is this substantial progress of so-

called "white bloc" districts.. .and not the backsliding of the Northern Washington

district-that is helping to build a case for the union shop in the British Columbia district.'.'

The lesson for Canadian woodworkers was clear--to win union security, denied to the

9' current leadership year fifter year, follow Fadling and the policy of the local white bloc.5 -

The implications were not lost on Dalskog or Parkin. In a wire allegedly sent to

Fadling published in the -her Workez on 18 August, Dalskog protested that the 9

August CJOR broadcast and subsequent press release in the "adds strengll to

employers' adamant refusal to meet membership's just demand. Continuing such

@snrption on eve of industry conciliation can benefit only employers." Cementing i

further on thee broadcast, Dalskog was quoted as asking,

x Is Brother Fadling afraid that the B.C. membership may win bigger results than were gained across the line that he permits such attacks to be made? Was it his intention to tell the employers of this province that a wage increase of 12; cents an hour would be acceptable to the' International officersF

The fight for control of the woodworkers in British Columbia, which had marked

_ much'of the negotiation process, now spilled over into subsequent proceedings. By 3

August, William Fraser had gone through the motions of conciliating the dispute and had

_ recommended referral to a conciliation b o d The District committee met the foUoWing day

to consider its nominee. Alsbury suggested William Mahoney, the Western Canadian

' Director of the CCL currently engaged in a campaign to elean communists out of the British

Columbia labour movement The committee declined the suggestion, appointing instead

Harvey Murphy, well-lmown,fiiend of-the woodworkers, and one 6f Mahoney's chief

targets. ~ & m r ~ protes rnphasizing the value of Mxhoney's CCL conne~tion.~

S G a With C O ~ & S ~ D ~ proceedings underway, the District c m&ee had seriously to

t consider once agaiq the question of a strike vote. The union had pnounced publicly the

vote was in abeyance. Still, the possibility of a "legal," supervised vote was quite real, \

depending on the outcome of conciliation board hearings. If they were going to have their

vote supervised, Pritchett and Dalskog wanted to clarify LRB regulations. Given the

inadequate mach~ery of the LRB, if the union were not to do the supervision it might

never get a vote and never be able to strike legally. Shortly after the quarterly council

meedng, Dalskog met with Smelts of theLabour Board to discuss the vote. It bas agreed

to have the Board chahmm draw up an affidavit to be sworn by'members of the union, and

to meet again to approve it.* Y 5.-

Pritchett and Dalskog met with Smelts and Strange (CCL representative on the -

Board) on 2 August to consider the affidavits. The law itself gave little direction

concerning the vote. The ICA Act (1948) empower@ the Board to make whatever

regulations it deemed proper "for the purpose of establishing supervisi~q.'~ Xmmdiately it

became apparent that union officials under oath would not be prepared to administer a vote

that included non-union employees. Pritchett and Dalskog pointed out that any union

officer seen supervising a ballot cast by a non-union worker would "ruin all chances of his .

reelection to office." That discussion led to a consideration of whether a strike vote would

be legal under the Act if non-unioi employees did not participate. Further, would an

industry-wide positive vote be binding an Eburne Sawmills, with a high

proportion of non-union workers, where be rejected by a majority of

employees. Smelts and Strangel th<Yancouver subcommittee of the Board, referred the

whole matter to a full meeting of the LRB.lQ

On 9 August that M y met to draw up rigulations. P a t practice in the industry, by

agreement with the minister, had allowed for individual units to transfer their bargaining

power via the local union to the District &gaining Committee. That would no longer be the

case. The Board ruled that votes be tabulated unit by unit (meaning by individual

operation, plant or camp) and that each respective unit would decide its own action. A

strike, vote, to be legal, had to include all employees in a unit whether union or not. If a

unit voted against a strfke and then was struck regardless: the strike would be illegal and

Coplld lead to decertificatio~t'l

As Dalskog and Wtchen continued to insist that any M o t be of union members

only, the Board met several times through Augusp, hearing from Heffeman of Stuart

Research, Ruddock of'the CMA and J.C. Stewart of the Industrial Association of British

Columbia, in an effort to work out machinery forcohducting a full vote of all employees

involved. It was finally decided to use Pacific Lumber Inspection Bureau employe& to

supervise the vote in the mills, and government log scalers in the camps. Both employers

and the union would be permitted one'scrutineer in each location.I*

TtK outcum Of these meetings represented &other considerable setback to the /

union's ability to continue to act as bargaining representative within the parameters of the

ICA Act and regulations. Any subsequent strike vote would now be weight& down by 0

thousands of non-union votes. White blw penetration of individual plants might further

splinter a strike vote already seriously divided by industry sector as in 1947. What

followed logically from strike votes by individual units, was contract approval, by unit,

given the power of the LRB to order a supervised vote on any offer made during a strike.

From there it was only one step to @di~idual'~lant contracts and the disintegration of i 4

industry-wide bargaining and the industry collective agreement which had bee the union's

crowning achievement during the war. 't \

The issue of compliance with reactionafy labour legislation had grave implications -

not only for the District Executive, but for all unionized woodworkers in British Columbia,

making a mockery of the - claim so confidently broadcast from Portland that, the

International's policy 6s paving che way for union security in District One. A strike vote,

even in compliance with the ICA Act, and its new regulations, was out of the question not

just in 1948, but so long as the wdworker union in British Columbia remained under the

influence of the "Taft-Hartleyites" in Portland and New Westniinsgr. If action to "save the #

L

union" had, in July, appeared necessary at some indefinite time in the future, by the end of 0 4 - -t

August it looked like that tfme had arrived. 0

During that month, as well, the white bloc took its campaign to the Mission local, 1-

367, always a weak link in the District. Between 1946 and 1948, the local, under direction

of its president, Freylinger, and Business Agent Shelley Rogers, had withheld per capita

payments to the International. An audit earlier in the year by TURB had revealed over "

$6000 in dues collected but not forwarded, as well as generally sloppy bookkeeping

practices, Rogers was asked to resign in May. White bloc proponent and International

organizer, Neil Shaw, was chosen to replace Rogers at the August general meeting, but the C

local executive refused to accept his appointment. ~ & g toorn the air with the news that

in a move similar to that-in New Westminster two years before, the rank-and-file with the

assistance of an International organizer were ousting the communists from control in an

effort to build the loch up into a real union. In every issue, he boasted, the members voted

for labour's interests against the Party line.13

The following month the Freylinger slate won reelection, but under a cloud of d

suspicion, as, in the president's words, "a large number of ballots were disqualified

because of improper balloting in the sub-locals." Shaw claimed that over 50 percent of

eligible voters had been disqualified, and, at Hammond alone, over 40q, ballots had been -'l' -.

tossed out. Shaw.referred the matter to the Lnternational Board. The newly-elected slate

immediately moved to suspend dues payments to the International until its present

disruption in the British Columbia District ceased.14

Incompetent local administration had cost the District dearly in New Westminster.

Now, Mission was on the verge of falling to the white bloc, and the latter's efforts iri 1-217

were being stepped up. On 29 August the Vancouver mill local became the target of a

white Moc "rump" meeting orgaTllzed by Mahoney, Mike Sekora, Alshuy and International

First t Vice-President, Al H w n g . The intention was to establish an alternative local D

structure that could seize control at an appropriate time. ~ l o ~ d Whalen was elected chair of

the rump committee which also consisted of financial and recording secretaries. The

meeting had been publicized widely throughout the local and was followed by a second' 5 .

one, at the end of September, attended.by at least 25 people, called to discuss the >

conciliation board awatdl? T,

The events of August were indeed very alarming to the leaders of District One.

After the July quarterly meeting, there was apparent consensus on the District Council over -

the need to move the woodworkers out of the IWA. Even' Pritchett, long committed to

international unionism, had become convinced that the writing was on the waIl.l6 Any

differenck were over tactics. Pritchen and Bergren, with long, painstaking experience in

building a union from the. ground. up, knew the problems inherent in constructing a new - organization. Gladys Hiiland, too, based in the less than solid Vancouver mill local,

favoured a gradualist approach. These trade unionists would have prefer& to spend as

long as possible preparing the groundwork for disaffiliation, and for the establishment of a

new union within the existing structure of the IWA in British Columbia. The continued

inroads of the white bloc, and the clear h tention of the International to hold a special

convention in 1948 to deal with problems in District One, u n d d e d that approach.17

Pritchett was a man with a strong belief in, and respect for the rank-and-file. It was he

who had pushed hardest, during 1946-48, for a strategy of bringing the increasingly

bureaucratic District office and Negotiating Committee back into touch with the

membership. Despite the obvious message delivered to the District Executive by the 1947 4

strike vote, the 1948 election results, and the Fighting Fund campaign, or perhaps because

of these, Pritchett would have preferred to build a strong base of support amongst the

workers on the job prior to moving out of the WA. But he was caught. According to

John Stanton, Pritchc:: w s no fool: ,

He would know full well that a lot of b&eaukcy had encrusted his union in 1947 and on irim 1948 and his natural inclination would be to oppose that and go back to the rank-and-file, but he was trapped.. . .like so many other individuals, even though they are the leaders of an organization they can

onty go so &-& they can get tradped and I think Pritchett was trapped in theb-o-ehlg

When the M o n was @finitely taken to prkmpt Wssible International action, and

carry the disaffiliation motion io the October quarterly District Council meeting, is not %?

absolutely certain. Thq evidence suggests that the fma. decision was made at a meeting in . P

which'PritcFn, provincial LPP leader and local 1-7 1 Vice-President Nigel Morgan, and

Mine Mill le der Harvey Murphy were involved, some time after Mine Mill's and J B

Murphy's suspension from the CCL, and prior to the September BCFL convention. By 1

m& accounts, Murphy had a large say in the decision. He was the provincial Party's

expert on trade union matters and.'fended to dominate Morgan.l9 He was not terribly

beholden to the Party's line at any $me, and in particular, in 1948, with respect to 'Z

$ unconditionak support of the CCFL20 -Qn the other hand, he likely took some inspiration

from the Party's hard anti-irnpkialist policy that emerged after the war. The 24 August

announcement of the expulsion of Mlltphy and Mjne Mill from &e CCL was a turning

point for the IWA. Expelled h m the mainsueam of the Canadian labour movement, and

on the way td.becom& a "dual" union. in both the United States and Canada by virtue of

CIO-CCL-sponsored Steelworker raids,21 Murphy and his union now represented a

powerful and attractive pull on the woodworkers' leadership. Murphy had finished his

rousing speech to the January District convention with the assurance to the-delegates that

the Briti~h~Colurnbia District of the IWA "has no more loyal supporter.. .as myself or the

Mine Mill and Smelter Workers' Union in British Columbia which will always be there by

your side, a little bit ahead, m a y b w e hope--but we will be there all the time fighting

agairlst fie boss.'= Mine Mill was now also just "a little bit ahead" of the woodworkers in

taldngits leave, albeit involuntarily, of the mainstream labour movement In &upst 1948,

if District One wanted to continue to fight alongside Mine Mill, it would have to do so

outside of the CCL. Murphy, with Morgan in tow, was able to override Pritchett's

weakening resolve to stick it out a little longer in an effort to build a broader base of b

support. That the Mine Pviillffnurphy expulsion from the CCL was the turning point for

~is t r ic t One is also indicated by the course of the conciliation board proceedi&s then

underway. ,

TQe lt&ber operators based their case against union security on the argument that

there existed in District One of the IWA "a bitter internal quarrel over the question of

cisposition of Union funds, and over the attitude of the @mmunist part of the membership

in regard to the Marshall Plan and, other matters." It was publk knowledge that charges

and counter charges had been made. The operato& contended that the safety of the

industry could not be jeopardized by such factional quarrels within the bargaining agency.

One group, "given complete control," byvirtue of the union shop, codd expel members

from the union who held key positions in particular operation; causing disruptions to

production and loss of employment to other workers. In evidence, they provided a leaflet - entitled, "The White Bloc," distributed b i the Pistrict Coumil throughout mills in New

Westminster during July, which hdicated th&e ?as "serious internal trouble" in the i,

uni0n.2~ To further the point, Heffernan submitted to the board newspaper accouhts of

International statements and radio broadcasts recently directed against the British Columbia

Districr.24 Implicit in the industry presentation was the argument that union s d t y could

only be considered once internal disruption had ended. Since the disruption stemmed

lmgely from the "activities of the Communist part of the membership," and its disposition 5

of union funds,25 if District One wanted ever to be given union security, it followed that

the communist leadership would first have to go. That in essence was the message of the

International, now clearly expressed by the industry as well.

Just so the work& and public would not miss the point, Bob Morrison, in his 27

August broadcast on the proceedings, asked how anyone could imagine that, with respect

to the union's .j;kfare fund demand, the coast operators "would pay large sums of money

into the custodv of a mu^ of IWA officers who are in difficultv with their own

s - . * - V inter&onal office over finances, and in disfavour with large sections of their own 6

7 - ks npqbenhip - . over their politid loyalties.% *..

S F ' -*"' *;g . - Tfre District Executive had been baited like this before during negotiations, but had

. "r - - never allW itself to be drawn into an out and out pudlic battle over the issue,of

*. ' 4

>admitip. '~p, however, with the Mine Mill ouster, and the decision taken . \

*disafR&a, the gloves were off. On 27 August, after Heffeman read into the recbrd of the' \

conciliation board proceedings -a the contents of the controversial District leaflet, Murphy

suddenly dropped his guise as'objective board member, and responded that if there were no

discrimination against the union, &ere would be nb need of union security. When he then

acc&ed the employen of having '?xml pigeons" in the union, Heffeman dcnied it and , v

. blustered that it was scandalousthat a inan sitting on the board would accuse him of'having . ;.

. - stool pigeons.

To back up Murphy's charge, tDaX&og and Pritchett proceeded to put before t4e .&T -,

board the McAllister 1abour-q~ affidavits, and Dalskog's now-famous photographs of the I

q - -a ,

graveyard entrapment of Noble from the year before. At the following session, the union

brought as its k t wimess,3tella M&, whd had been secretary to the manager of BSW,

Syd Smith, from 1942-45. She testified to having seen personal c o m s p o q c e sent to 2 fF;: I

Smith giving information regarding empl67ees in the company's cwps, as well as a letter

outward advising against the h n g of an individuabon account of union activities. @

Heffernan immediately asked for a recess until 16 September tb allow for TJ. Noble, who

was out of town, to appear and ,answer union charges.27

At this point in'the proceedings, Dakkog, Pritchett and Murphy h e w full well that

they would not get any concessions on the union shop, no matter how many spy plots they

publicl$ unveiled. Ail the other contract issues had been heard by the bard These

theatrics, which cod4 only delay a final repon and settlement, were not intended to

influence board chairman Bird, who had atready stated he regarded such evidence as

irrelevant to the issue of union shop and a matter for the LRRB The union executive, in

. - - - . . ~

- , ~ . - - . .5 ,3y,.2-T--5,7:..-:.:.: . ~ , .-.? . ,.:.-,-7,--*-e-T -, -;;:: &-- ..-."-~.- ,?:-q@~x$ . . . . -

, - ~ - . . ~- - ~ -.\: : 1~ - .-~:-- ~ - .. . - - ~. - - . .. .-,.* . L ..-. LC:-:.* ~ - . . - , - .. . - , 5.L. .. . ,, . - . . . .. - - -..' . AT.-^> 't,. I . - -

=.> - . , . . ..*-: - - i' . , - - . - ~ . - I

* - - . - 2- _-_L - --L~LA* , - - - . ~- . . . - - . +- . -.- -398- . . . - .

-

. - - -- , . .

conjunction with Murphy, had decided to use the faum of the amciliation &oad - ~ - . .

np some visceral reactions amongst the ra&-and-file against the bosses and those 1

"stooges" from the white bloc who were in bed with them. Dredging up the old graveyard

spots and accusafmm df an elaborate netwcrrk of spies and informers at the beck and call of

Stuart R e s e a f c h m r tactic intended to help the way to disaffiliation, part of a . w

strategy designed to carry as many wmiworkers as possible militantly and defiantly into a

new d-Canadirtn ind- union. But "the long ~" (to bomw Stanton's phrase) of the

lumber bosses intruded into these plans. Less than an hour prim to the sche&&d airing of

AI Pa&h's eveping Tree~reen Gold? broadcast on 2 September, station officials notified the

union's comm~tator that foer pages hsd bew completely deleted from his pnp& script:

The censored materid M t at some Iength with the labour spying evidence presented to the L

bard three days before. The Mion met a similar setback when it tried to get its labour spy /

case into p ~ t & the f m of full adveitisements. Both the and the

4

Two dafys after the muzzling of Parkin, delegates to the British Columbia Federation

of Labour assembled in convention with the suspended Mine Mill delegation looking on as

guests. This was the occasion, according to Abella, where an "overconfident Pritchett,"

miscalculating his support, made the "fatal mistake" of moving to seat the 10 local 1-357 - delegates whom the convention had voted already to exclude. The result was the capture

B

by the CCL of the majority of executive seats. The way was now clear, according to '-

Abella, for Mahoney's drive against the main bastiqn of the left-District One of the

IWA.30

Aklla's analysis of Pritchett's behaviour makes no sense. On the one hand, we

Ritchett, wiiling to risk handing over the Federation

reason. On the other hand, Abella presents us with

the hotheads in District One who would risk all by

rushing headlong out of the I W A and the CCL without consolidating rank-and-file

- *

\

I G * -399-

supporz.3' What he is the fact that the decision to leave th6 IWA in October had

already been taken. W e Prioche# may have resisted, it was characteristic of the man,

once a oourse had been chosen by his c o d e s , to support it fully.32 His action at the

Federaa* conventioa only makes sense if he was already on the road to disaffiliation @om

' the fWA and the CCL' With Mine Mill and the District One leadership gone, the BCFL

- would soon fall to the Congress ariyway. To try to exclude the New Westminster delegates '

on spurious grounds would only be playing once again into the hands of the anti- %

comunists.

The adjourned conciliation board reconvened for its final two days of hearings on

16 September. Press reports gave little coverage or credence to the testimony of Don b.

McAlister, while Noble's and Stuart'spdenials were treated at great length. Bird at one

- point was quoted ds suggesting thatathe proceedings were being reduced to a farce, an - .

t in ion apparently shared by the ~ammohd sublocal of 1-367. It took the cipportunity of

publicly asking for the resignation of Pritchett and Dalskog for mishandling the hearings.

Fadling, in a statement issued to the press-on 29 September, called the board proceedings a

"three ring circus" which made a "laughing stock of the IWA and the whole trade union

movement" He also labelled thewage settlement oljtained"'very '

In fact, with some hard bargaining by Murphy, in consultation with the Policy i -

Committee, the board's wag$ recommendation exceeded District expectations, and

Fadlipg's ceiling-but only by one-half a cent Ressed to get a settlern&t appro\ed in

time for the 3 October c o d meeting, the Policy Committee remained in constant session I

- while Murphy, working feverishly, kept it appri'sed by phone of his progress. On 19

September, after eight p h e calls in the space of three hours, M q h y had managed to

,mediate a settlement that he c d d sign as p ion qrmmtative, thus dtmpening any

dissension that might have ken fuelled in the logging locals by a minority report. MLII$~

lmrgamed clevdry, offering to sign a unanimous award which excluded union shop h turn

for inclusion of cook and bunkhouse workers in the overall wage settlement,34 On wages,

i li

L A

the board recommended 13 cents or 11 percent, retrdactive 75 days prior to signing. a; - - -

According to Murphy's assessment, the reason the operators went up so high on wages T-

. - A -

was that they had ''no intention of giving in one inch on Union Security.. .'3s The industry - won i@ point on piece workers, with the increase given in-terms of productidn rather than - - .

L.. '

hours, in most cases. Train crews receiv& eftra increases, however, 10 cents for

engineers and brakemen, and fiveLcents for other crewmen. The union could even justify

accepting a percentage incr-, given t•’ie relatively high 13-cent floor, since it would help

alleviate.grievances of skilled workers, while not penalizing unduly the lower wskilled . I

<

categories.- \

The niorning following the settlement, the Policy Committee voted un&usly to

accept t& offer, and mmmended all locals accept on or before 27 September, in the usual

manner; "without wonying about rhe Governmentat this time." Murphy was voted a $500

+ honorarium for his efforts k helping obtain "one of the highest settlements reached in @

Canada," an acknowledgement which particularly irked Alsbury. The New Westminster

President got in one last parting shot, stating he would vote for the motion to accept the 1

award, but wanted to "register my prbtest that the espionage incident and @ee 'White Bloc'

leaflet were intrduced, as theydid not contribute to our benefity%

On 27 September, the Policy Coxpittee a.&ounced unanimous acceptance by all -

locals. On 29 September, the Lumber reported the signing of thenew agreement,

declaring "the basic 13 cent boost is one-half cent higher than last year's and higher than

the increase won in Washingtotr and Oregon." The main factor in preventing an even

higher settleinent, the paper declared, was internal disruption headed by Fadling and the

"self-s&i" white bloc in New westminster. Members were warned that now, with @

coast settlemet, at least, behind them (the interior localshad still to sign), 'We must decide

our position very soon.. .We all wagt to rnaintaiii international affiliations. But we cannot

w permit such aff3liations to be used as a means of destroying us.':37

On 1 October, with uniw ac~~tauce'coafirmed, several BCLA-affiliated companies

. announced a boost in board rates in thee camps of 50 centsi in order to-pay for the . / * *

increased wages to cook and bunkhouse workers. This action was particularly galling to e

the union since Murphy had consented to a unanimous report in ordereta get the cook and

bunkhouse workers included in the overall increase. Even the Vancouver criticized the

employers' move, as over 300 loggers in at least four different camps, took job action.in \ k

pr0test.3~ As the delegates assembled for the historic October quaprly District Council

meeting, this latest bosses "splitting action,"*made possible only through union disruption,

provided grist for the orators' mill while they warmed up for the main business at hand. ?A

The resolution on board rates noted that after long pegotiations including

conciliation under Bill 87, and with the ink not dry on the settlement, the9perators took '. L

this "underhanded action" knowing they would have the full support of l&al 1-357 and

International President Fadling, together with the "reactionary" Coalition government. It 0

resolved that members should stay in camp and fight this struggle, and offered full support

to any workers finding it necessary to take action to safeguard the 1948 wage kttlemenr

Pritchett led off the speeches on the resolution, reiterating the union position @at - r,

board charges shpuld be part of collective b&&ing. The LRE3 had been notified of this

recent move, but Little could be expected from it as it was pre~ntly constituted "under this

phoney act, under this

with a "Taft-Hartley"

according to Pritc hett .

Taft-Hartley Act" Now, he o t $0 win this struggle

and that was ly what the resolution state&

"We are not going to import Taft-Hartleyism into danada. I am

very happ; that the International President is here to hear that ... I am charging the C

International President of climbing in bed with the TaEt-E@tley Act" Since the union did

not intend to have a ."'Rift-&ey policy in this province," it was necessary to vote in 8,

support of the loggers who will . .

carry the fight and ask thdse loggers not to lea\ie the job In some instances it may be necessary to have job stop-work meetings. In other instawes.. .a. ' successful slowdown will be rlecessary, in other instances, work one day

e

I -

and not the next; in other irlstances, protest rhetings and strong logger delegations to the a m p push and the g e n d manager, keeping the heat cw everywhere, mobilizing the entire membership because this d y affcgs a W o n of our membership, mmobilizing the sawmill workers behind it.. . .. .,*

>>

Even before the disslffiliation motion had hit the floor, Pritchett had given his own -B

"rank-and-file" statement of what the Woodworkers' Industrial Union of Canada was all

about; what the new union's "Declaration of Independence" would mean when translated .

into action, That Declaration was the distillation of a programme that Pritchett had stood

a d f o u h t for over. the c o p e af ~~deci€deS.deS; a pro&amine that-had beeh.kriously S; o

I a 9 - e.

-2 ' -. * . - b 6 A ..

dompromised both by the w w s s of his own efforts and-by. those whcLhad taken advantage ,

of his, &id his comrades hard work--oppo&nis~ like ~ a d l i n ~ and Alsbury who 'had - -

- *lfiitrated,%he union bureaixracy,+'proipl dt weaknesses-in .the union s-mcture and . = . , _ . < > ", :

baigaining's*tratkgy, - . &d &epised to-grab it all away from them. 'Whereas this Union . - -

' belongs to us $e 6wxlworkek,'? began the disaffiaGon motion, "we will not all04 th% .. , , rn

. bosses, the agencies of the govefnment, nor the labor fakirs to lay hands upon it."39 ,

e: The New"IWA

Many of those on the left of the labour movement in the 1940s and 50s viewed the

1948 split as one of the worst mistakes the party ever ma&, spelling the end of radicplism

both in the labour movement and in many communities'where the IWA formed a nucleus -

for left-wing political organization.1 This kind of,analysis must be tempered by the

conclusions reached above ris to 'the codditions under which the split took place. The B *

departure of the communist$ •’rom the IWA was not the cause, but a symptom of a more

generalstructural ch,ange going-on in the labour movement. Had they managed to stay f

within'the ~ W A and the CCL District b e ' s leaders would have done so on much Merent

terms than before. There is most certainly a question to be asked with respect to the

consequences of the split-but it must be-reformulat&. Whpt bust be examined is the

longer tegm impact on b e IWA of the triumph of pure-and-simple trade unionism, and the 1 ,

eventual ascendancy of full-blown business unionism in the province's most important

industry. .

1 .

- ,. a It is outside the parameters of this discussion to try to examine in depth the impact

of this development on the ~&sh.Columbia labour movement in general. ond det* of

note, however, points towards a new direction in the province after 1948. It came in the

Submi.ssion &de by the BCFL to the cabinet in 1949, and then to an ICA Act Enquiry - A

Board set up in 1951. In Wth4nstances, the Federation," supported by the IWA, voiced its

bsual objections to the supervised voting provisions, the protection to craft unions and so

on; kl good trade union concerns which emanated %om a desire to be treated as responsible

bargaining agents fd;i their members. One item on the agendx in 1949, and after, that ,

would not have been considered previously, was a suggestion to amend the definition of a

trade union so as to include the phrase: "(An organization etc.) which has as its primary

purpose the regulation pf relations &tween qmp1o)ers and employees through collective

;' bargaining." This suggestion certainly appealed to the 1951 enquiry board, and it was

, incorporated into ifs recommendations. Given the power of the LRB under the ICA ~ c t to 4

revoke the certification of any labour orgwhtion that it deemed had ceased to be such, that

definition would serve as a clear waming and threat to any trade union inclined to engage in a%

economic action that might be construed as having a political p q s e . Even the otherwise . * I

retrograde Labour Relations Act passed by the Social Credit government in 1954 did not go

quite so far, preferring the more liw amendment: "(An organization etc.) that bas as one

of its purposes the regulation ih the Rovince of relations between employers and t

employees through collective bargaining.'? L

Now, the new direction in the labour movement after 1948 manifested itself most

clearly at the top, amongst the labour bureaucrats who drafted .such policy

recommendations. Behind those leaders, in the IWA at least, marched much the same

contingent of woodworkers, many of whom 'were used to a somewhat different drummer.

Just as the process of establishing a new, lean and militant Canadian union could not be

instabtanmu, so too, the full integration of the IWA membership into a new trade union

practice would come about only gradually as well. .

In 1949 however, there were already portents of things to come. The operators,

pressing the4 advantage, had included a reversion to the 1946 wage rates and erosion of

the #hour week amongst other offensive contract proposals. A majority conciliation9

board report recommended no wage increase. The Dismct Policy Committee was directed

by local m ~ t i n g s to reject ;he award and call for a strike vote. The Negotiating Committee . .

officially requested such a vote, whereupon the LRB called it in for further discussions.

Without consultation with either the Policy Committee or the local membership, the

negotiators accepted the proposed LRB terms of settlement, which were slightly better than

those the board had recommended, but still provided no wage increase. The Policy

Committee later supponed the negotiators' action. Criticism from parts of the union was

deflected in the name of the Committee's "responsibility to the membership" to b k after

their best interests.3

--. -405-

d a

P

In Eght of the pax state of the union there was some justification for avoiding a ,

strike at this point. The membership, nevertheless reasserted itself at. the fol-lowing

convention, with the adoption of a "No Contract, No Work - Union Shop" programme.

By mid-1950, the union was in better shape in terms of A membership and finances, and was

able to push a bit harder, this time rejecting a conciliation b o d award of nine cents agreed

to even by its own nominee, Eugene Forsey. The union challenged the LRB to take, at

long last, a supervised s , W e , vote in the woodworking industry. In the largest

government-supervised strike vote to that date taken in &&t, b e w n 70 and 73percent a

of woodworkers voted to strike. Thrrty-two of 209 units voted against. At the height of a I

rising market curve, the industry c q e up with three and one-half cents more, and a

modified union security proposal. These ~ o n ~ s s i o n s staved off a snike-four hours prior to

the contract expiry deadline adopted by the onv vent ion.^

With many WILJC adherents drifting back into the IWA, and with a maintenance-of-

membership clause now in hand supported by ,an understanding that the emp!oyer would

"co-operate with the Union in obtaining and retaining" its members, the union bureaucrats

moved to assert ~ont ro l .~

Midway throu the contract year, in February 1951, the union responded to a ;"; suggestion from Forest Industrial Relations (the successor company to Stuart Research,

usually referred to as FIR) to extend the agreement an extra year on the basis of a nine-cent

inawse retromtive to 1 January 1951, and a cost-of-living bonus adjastment in July 195 1

and January 1952.6 In working out this settlement, which initiated a pattern of tying wages

directly to the economic cycle, the union executive praised itself for "shrewd bargaining" in

Light of a possible wage freeze due to the Korean War. The membership did not uniformly

share this view of a stand-pat settlement which provided a degree of economic stability to

both itself and the industry, but also suspended bargaining on any other cokact issues for

two full years. The deal passed by only a 9781 to 5549 margin.7

While the 1950 interim a p m c n t started the ball rolling, 1952 was the pivotal year

in the march toward full business unionism in the IWA. Once again, the District

convention adopted a '30 Contract, No Work" policy, now backed up by a Dismct strike

- fund that had reached "sizeable proportions.'* On directions from the convention, the

delegated Wages and Contract Conference fonvarded to the District Policy Committee an 4

ambitious p,oposal calling for incorporation-of the 14-cent January cost-of-living bonus

into the wage rate, plus an additional 35 cents, union shop, welfare plan and other lesser - - demands. At the same time, the industry, with British k d American sales beginning to

slump, called for a wage cut.9

Negotiations w p e -fo&owed by conciliation, with Lawrence Vandale, financial

secretary of the ~ e $ Weshninster local: serving as the union nominee. , When the I

conciliation board was slow getting underway (hearings began on 3 June), the District

Policy Committee recommended to the District Council flexibility with respect to the 15 - June strike deadline of the convention.1•‹ The 7 June majority award, accepted by the

industry, called for a wage freeze with a continuation of the cost-of-living adjustments, and

nothing else of significance. Vandale refused to make a recommendation, noting in his

minority report, much to the chagrin of some union members, that neither side had yet to

bargain seriously. "It may k y sary," he wrote, "for both parties to 'pocket their pride'

in an effort to amve at an equitable &lution."ll Taking its cue from Vandale, the LRB 6?!

adled when the union requested a strike vote without first voting on the award. Instead

the LIB gave an extension to the conciliation board to pursue a settlement. The LRB and

the employers apparently felt they could use the imminence of the union's own strike

deadbe against it and force a quick settIement.12

Meanwhile the District Council met in quarterly session, and considered the Policy

Committee recommendation to k flexible on the strike deadline. After several attempts at

reconciling the convention's "No Contract, No Work" dictum with the provisions of the

ICA Act, by a margin of one vote the Council decided to abide by the policy of the union in

the event &at it conflicted with the law.13 Accordingly, the w&k &or to 15 June, the - /

union held its own strike aqthorization vote which came in 9 . strike.14 Bound by the Council decision, the Policy Committee Q discuss lifting

i& deadline with the L P , gough it considered scaling-down its demands. FIR r~fnsed *. i further negotiations with the deadline pending, and the LRB finally approved a strike vote

. for the following week, but too late to comply with the District deadline.l5 \

On 15 June the coast local of Distkt One, against the better judgement of the Policy

Committee, embarked on its first industry-wide strike since 1946. FIR immediately

labelled the strike illegal, ~hich~technically it was. The Vancouver urged the LRB to .. hold a vote, since the union vote had been held prior to the full &lease of the conciliation

board reports.16. The LRB attempted to draw the industry back into negotiations, intending

to defer questions of legality during the talks. FIR refused negotiations until a legal vote on

the award had been held.17

Unfortunately for the District leaders, this strike, which none of them really wanted, .

occurred at a unique moment during which a virtual power vacuum prevailed in the

province. It took over a month after the defeat of the Johnson administration before some

very complicated and pmcedmes yielded the result of a Social Credit victory.

During that period no existed to intervene in the dispute. Finally Gordon

Slcran stepped into the b ach, d on 12 July offered to mediate.18 Twelve days later, he te 6, recommended a fully retromve five and one-half cent increase with an option for either

party to reopen negotiations in December. The cost-of-living bonuwould be maintained,

and three statutory holidays thrown in to sweeten an otherwise mediocre monetary award,

Full union shop was denied on the convenient pretext that the union had engaged in an * -

illegal job action. With that salt rubbed in its wounds, and several members facing

prosecution, the urrion accepted Sloan's offer on 28 July. Three days later the 45-day

strike ended19

The Sloan award was not a settlement worthy of a 45-day strike. The strike and the -

award produced dissension in the union which surfaced towards the end of the year as the

biannual District elections approached. The strike had been a disaster yet it provided an

opportunity for those io charge of the union to tighten their grip and launch out more

aggressively on a course already well charred prior to 1948, but now bogged down in "too R

4 P

much" rank-and-fde involvement in collective bargaining under the ineffective leadership of

During the fall of 1952, the District Executive undertook a major review of

negotiation procedure. In the past, the union bargaining agenda emerged o& of local

resolutions put to the District convention. All those approved were forwarded to a . .

delegated Wages and Contract Conference, which established priorities, and elected a

Policy Committee to carry them out. From the Policy Committee, a negotiating team was

elected to do the actual bargaining on its behalf. This procedure, while it essured the

" drawing of local and sectoral rank-and-file concerns and demands into the collective

bargaining, often created problems when it came actually to negotiating-a settlement. In - . 1952, this procedure "tied the hands" of the- Policy Committee .when it needed a few extra

days to work out a deal and avoid a strike. The District Executive, in the months following

the strike, moved to reorganize the process so as to give more control and authority in

determining and implementing proposals to the District Policy Committee. Now, under the

executive proposal, the Policy Committee would be set up at convention. Contract

resolutions would be referred to it, from which a "programmatic resolution" would be

forwarded to the Wages and Contract Conference for approval. In negotiations, the Policy

Committee would be delegated sufficient authority, if it were in "the best interests of the -.

membership," to deviate from the original demands to make a satisfactory ~ettlement.~

The Executive proposal for a revamped negotiation procedure was brought to the

January convention and passed with lit& contest. The delegates were sufficiently

impressed, in the aftermath of the 1952 strike, by the eloquent arguments of Lloyd Whalen I

against a "pseudo-militant policy that we 'should take her out come hell or high water."' In

a knock at Alsbury, who in his report to the convention had tried to defuse possible

criticism, Whalen asserted that "if we make serious errors 4en I think we should assume

just criticism for them" and respond accordingly. Why, he asked, when they all knew that -.

the LRB and employers "were conniving to put our Union in an embarrassing position and

they set a trap for us.. ." had the union stepped into it. There were also strong words from

Executive member Stuart Hodgson against a policy that allowed the Committee to be

trapped by a No Contract-No Work dictum from the membership-a mistake, he feared,

"that had led to a lot of the dissension that is in the Convention at the present time.'ql '

That dissension figured predominantly in the ensuing campaign for District office,

and provided for a restructuring of the Executive in line with the new, tighter policy on . contract negotiations. In recent balloting for International office, Fadling, who was .

considered by some to be not effective enough in rooting out the communis~ from the

union (a weakness attributed in part to his drinking and gambling habits) was replaced by

hard-liner A1 Hartung, a long-time rival for the presidency.22 Alsbury, who had been

closely identified with Fadling, was not very effective leader himself; good at back-room

intrigue, but a weak figure when it came to directing union affairs.23 During the course of

negotiations, he had discredited himself by allowing Joe Morris to take the lead in canying

out what was considered a central function of a District P r e ~ i d e n t . ~ At the same time,

Alsbury had to assumeeresponsibility for the mistakes that had been made. In August,

Internqtional Vice-president ,Claude Ballard came north in the midst of the strike post-

+ mortem controversy and accusations, and blasted the District leadership, while explicitly

minimizing the negati&act of M0nis7 role.25

Moms had gotten into some difficulty during the course of the strike over an

"indiscreet" (in Ballard's tenns) set of private negotiations carried out with Arthur Sereth,

the manager of Eureka Sawmills near Nanaimo. Sereth had "hot" lumber tied up behind

IWA pickets at the Nanaimo assembly dock. He approached local 1-80 Vice-President and r-P

--- - -

Business Agent, Tony Poje about a possible deal. On Poje's .advice, Sereth contacted

Morris, President of the local and Vice-President of the District. While his company was

part of the FIR group, Sereth was growing impatient and was prepared to sign an

individual deal if the terms were right. District One had a long-standing practice of using

such individual deals with weaker independents, signed on the union's terms, to put -

pressure on the master negotiations. It was not unheard of for a union negotiator to

undertake such talks. Morris, however, fell into the trap of discussing a settlement on / e

Sereth's terms of a five-cent increase and four statutory holidays, which he said he would .

submit to the Negotiating Committee. There may indeed have been some justification in - 4

Moms' Ihind, as one injunction had already been served against the District officers and

union qember !!? m Ladysmith by Coastal Towing. A few days after his discussions with

Sereth on 1 1 or 12 July, a similar injunction order on behalf of Canadian Transport was a / e

Ned against 1-80 pickets including Poje, at the Nanairno dock. By this time, however, ir

Sereth hiid apparently decided he copld not bargain apart •’?om FIR, and &ked Moms if it

would be'possible to submit a similar offer on thq union's behalf for consideration by FIR

wsident, J.M. Billings. Morris later claimed he suggested the matter should proceed no

funher. But in a signed affidavit, whick Serethpresented to FIR, Morris was quoted as

agreeing to have the proposal submitted to FIR on the understanding that it would still need & :

Executlvel approval. " 0

It is pbssible that Moms did consent to its submission, despite his dknials. It is

also possible that Sereth, in conjunction with FIR, had concocted the whole scheme in an .i

effort to force the union into a compromising position which might lead to a master

settlement At any rate, after taking the union's latest master offer to F k for consideration,

Gordon Sloan, who at this point was acting as mediator, retwned to tell the union

Committee it had been rejected in view of Moms' offer to Sereth, a client of FIR.

According to Alsb~xy, who later tried to use the issue to shift the blame for the poor

settlement onto Morris, Sloan labelled the union's wage demand "ridiculous" in light of

-. -411- F

what Billings had told him about Morris' alleged proposal. When Sloan's f ind settlement -

proved to be very close to tk terms Morris discussed with Sereth, and a very long way w

from the union's original-request, the District Vice-Resident appeared ripe for attack."

A full investigation was launched, in 'the midst of which came a call from at least

one sub-local in- Courtenay for Morris' resignation, initiated by an Alsbury loyalist, and

election running mate, Jamb Holst, The District Investigating Committee was not receptive

to Alsbury's allegations, implying he had been responsible for distributing copies of

Sereth's affidavit around local 1-363. With B'allard intervening on Moms' behalf,

charging that the case against him had been motivated for political reasons, the August

quarterly District Council meeting voted to uphold Morris' version of &ents. That was the

beginning of the end of Stuan A 1 ~ b u . y . ~ ~ .

The Morris-Mitchell election slate s&ck back against the Alsbury faction in a

manner which reflected the degenerative condition of District leadership in general.

Mitchell smeared his rival for secretary-treasurer, Lawrence Vandale, with a familiar charge F'

that the local 1-357 financial secretary had "jockeyed the records" with respect to strike

fund payments, in the amount of $10,000. well-schooled in t& ways of the old whhe

bloc, Alsbury, and Vandale promptly took out an advertisement in the New Westminster

lumbiaa which distorted Mitchell's charges, saying he had accused Vandale of stealing

$10,000 from the local. Vandale also distributed though various locals copies, of a letter

obtained from In temational Secretary -Treasurer, Carl W inn, tisting payments received by

negotiators during the strike. Morris topped the list, receiving at least 50 percent more than '

any of the others. It was implied that he had failed to repay the District as he should have

out of respect 'for striking workers. ~n~esti~ations were launched into both episodes with

Mitchell being exonerated of accusations against Vandale's honesty, and Vandale chastised

for maldng official union wll~spondence available to the

The outcome of the Dismct elections was consi"stent with the results of these various

investigations. The incumbent slate, with Moms now at its head, defeated Alsbury's "new

1 % L

look" slate, but only by the narrowest of 1nargins--667~to 6381-%I the case of the "

presidential contest29 It was predictab!e, but nevertheless ironic, that in its

of 1o"ggers' and millworkersi~lubs, Timber 4

-r-r, the LPP backed Alsbury ove+orris as

"more likely to carry W u g h the desires of the membership." In particular it quoted a i . .

Morris resolution submi& $ a local 1-80 meeting, calling on the 1953 District oonkntion I .

to put q j o r emphasis on conditions, "and to consider monetary gains

to be of secondary i m p m e in consideration of the economic condition of the lumber

With-a new president in place, committed to a business-ljke approach in

negotiations, and a new saeamlined negotiation procedure designed to place more control

in the hands of the District policy bureaucracy, tde way clear to forge ahead and cany p"" to its logical conclusion the capture of by the white bloc forces of pure-

- ,

and-simple trade unionism -' ' ,'

5-

The union went into its 1953 negotiations led by Carl Winn, International Secretary,

. as its chieEnegotiat&--31 District dections were still in progress, but Winn was fvmly in - 1 I

the Morris ,-p, Ad could be relied on to steer the Negotiating Committee id the -kt -.> -

\

direction. The Wages and Contract Conference had p t forward a demand for 15 cents 'u\ \

across the board-the lowest proposal since 1949. In ordejof priority there followed six \

paid sta&tory holidays, a fare allowance for loggers, a n d 9 shop .32 In a District press ,---\ ------ - I

release issued just p ~ i o r ~ p i e e d i n ~ to c o ~ k b n , the union announced that &e i

importance of that year's negotiations was emphasized by the fact that Hartung had / I assigned Winn y d E.W. Kenney, the International's =Research Director, to present the

r ,

union's Mef to h e board.$

On 2 m y , the Lumber- reported acceptance of the unanimous conciliation /-- *

~ ~ e c o m m e n d a t i o n of a five cent an hour inrrease with incorpo~ation of the current nine /

rzcent-bonus into the base rate, taking it to $1.49. That meant that at the expiry of the sixth

contract year after the white bloc m k over the union, the basic wage paid to wdworlrers " k

would have risen a total of 41 cents per hour. The cost of living h&ments were

terminated, and certain category and seniority adjustments made. TIE $itor of the mion ,

paper o p M that, "It is an occasion when it pays to grasp ke sqbstance instead ogreaching . \ u

for the ~hadow."3~ . %

k . 'di

To dampen any &ssible criticism of the Policy Co&ttee7s recomi~bdation * - of a . -. - acceptance, after newly-elected Resident Moms outlined ihe -terms of the award ov; &e .

. L.

union's "Green Gold" broadcast, Carl Winn took the microphone tourge-ac&dce.: His

speech marked the official beginning o f a new era of business unionismin tpe Bri t i8 ; . P C 1

Columbia lumber indusny. He conceded that npt all meinbers were Pleased with the * ' -

8 -

decision against extra holidays and the.&on shop. B& weigh& the w -&verse fa- orthe . *9 i

award "against the dire results another strike in thaindustq this year would have on the > . overall economy of B.C.," it was necqsary to take a "long look at some pther important ,

considerations." These considerations related to the "very definite hopethat a new pattern' . . of labourmanagement relations arose from this year's negotiations." That pattern, if it

materialized, Winn assured his listeners, would mean a big step toward stabilizing the 1

lumber industry in the province. He then got to the crux of the new direction he was

advocating: > <

,-

To speak of "cmperation" between labour and management in this industry, after some of the things which have transpired over the years, probably

A

borders on "heresy" to many of our people.. . : Both this Union and the Employers have been irresponsible in the past in meetiag some of the pbblems of this industry squarely and trying to sol* them realistically. The International is completely convinced that we have now reached the point where both sides must put their houses in d e r and work together for the betterment of this industry.. . .

This is our industry just as much as it is the Employer's.. . .We have just as much at stake in its success or failure as have the empl~yers. It is to our benefit that this industry conhues to "boom."

It is to our benefit that this industry be expanded and well managed. It is to our benefit that it be able to operate on prices that keep it competitive in a world market and still bring a reasonable profit.

It is to our benefit that the Employers are aggressive and progressive in the rrtarketing--s of the industry. It is to om b e f i t &at the E-oyer makes money.. . . t

The Employers have been reluctant to take this step, of joining forces for the common good, and so has this union-up to this time. Now w h e union--are taking the initiative in this direction because we see in such a course the distinct and important possibility of strengthening the economy of this great industry.

If this result can be obtained, our Union members and their families are going to gain far more than they ever will under a short-sighted policy of "let the Employer worry about his business and we'll tend to ours.'?5

Winn's speech was greeted with considerable delight by local scribes. Sari staff

reporter Chris Crombie documented it in full, calling the speech an "unpzecedented.move to

develop a 'strong pattern of cooperation' between management and labour in British

Columbia's vast lumber industry.''36 Coluninist Elmore Pbilpott noted that for years he

had been trying to sell the same message--that ,-- labour, management and the general public - had to put their heads together "to nail down the British Commonwealth market for wood

products.. .If we don't grab and hold those markets--make no mistake-Russia will be I

right there to grab them, on a barter brisi~."3~ NO sooner had the applause died away, than -

the interior industry broke out in an ugly and violent dispute, the result of which could only

have confirmed for both the business unionists and their corporate supporters, the wisdom

behind the proposed "new pattern" of industrial relations.

The interior strike of 1953 grew out of long-felt injustice's amongst elements gf the b

local leadership and rank-and-file as to their inferior status in relation to the coastal t

workforce. During the late 1940s and early 50s, with production and employment

expanding far more rapidly in the interior sector than on the coast, workers began to feel 'h

the inequity of their position more acutely, and a growing confidence that they could do

something to correct the balance. This militant perspective was reinforced by inter-u&on ' I

I

rivalry, most particularly in the southern interior, where both the AFL and the WC's t i l l ,

had a noticeable presence. Nevertheless, the interior remained unevenly developed, . n

; 3 '

the unido. Its condition piayed right intoihc h& ' -

adopted a smtegy of taking. votes in only selective operati'ofis ,( 51 order to f&s@l a -

. disaster. Even then, some of the iotes &nt agaiost strike action. The oved.std@ VOW& I < . e

' the south was almost evenly split yith i9 of 39 units voting to w e our at the end of . ,

In the north, overall balloting showed almost 70 percent in favour, but again 14 a

and not all units were b@l~ted.~~ - . .

ihe wor);ers &ed to expand the stnke @mugh illegal picketing of producing plants.

Several injunctions were served against such picketers .-' in ~elowna, Quesnel and other

points. With violence erupting h his home territory, Premier Bennett intervened, meeting

four times with the two sides in an attempt to bring them to mediation.40 Meanwhile the , 1

union newspaper was aglow with stories of an operator's "strike breaking plot" basededon

highly confidential correspondence from the Interior Lumber Manufacturers' Association u

outlining procedures to be used in getting evidence against illegal pickek41 . .

Finally, in December, County Court Judge, Arthur E. Lord of Vancouver, was

appointed by the government as a one-man industrial enquiry commission into both

northern and southern disputes. After .. a strike lasting over three months, the workers +?- evedtually o . won a five and one-half cent inc'rease--one-half cent less than had been

recommended by a conciliation board in ~e~ tember .~2 In his report, Lord made noie oE

affidavits presented to him listing "such a series of unlawful a&, including violence, B

&adt and damage to property on the part of members of the union as to show a complete

disregard for the laws of this , , country." As a result he could not even consider the issue of \

union security. "It would be unfortunate," he declard, "to let the union members feel that 3

they had ground out an agreement •’?om the employer as a result of unlawful acts." Morris

and Wm could not 'have a m more." . , .

The 1953 evenfs in the interior provided even funher justification for the new m -

pattern of industrial relations advocated by the union aders. To Moms, H m n g and .

Winn, the strikes were a legacy of a bygone era, and spoke to the urgeht need to organize ^

the interior properly in order to bring the workforce into line with the new direction they

weretrying to chart. i'

The 1953 interior strikes, as well as the coast shutdown of 1952, also pmv

opportunity for the new S k i d Credit re- to put its stamp on the prbvince's industrial

relations system with a revamping of labour legisl-ation. The fact that the leaders of thg I

@

strongest union in the province had just opened the door to a new era of labotir-

management coopemion assured Bennett, and his minister Lyle Wickspthat there would be

little resisrkce to their new Labour Relations Act (Bill 28 as it was known) passed by the' 7

legislame in Apnl1954 to replace the ICA Act.

The'lead up to the Labour Relations Act had begun shortly after the 'social Credit

party gained power. Towards the edd of 1952, wicks had informed labour leaders that at

the expiry of the term of the presknt Labour Relations Board, on 12 January 1953, he

intended to curtail its powers considerably. Qnly the chairman would rkrnain full-time.

Labour and management nominees would serve on a per diem 'basis as needed. Wickk

intendkd to transfer certification and a&ministezltion to his department staff, and to give R

igcreased authority to conciliation officers to settte disputes.44 Employer groups had >

lobbied'for the elimination of conciliation boards altog&er, and their replacement with. 1

small subcommittees of the IXB.45 In general, the minister's hefition was to curtail the

p w e r of W s with union representation on them, and centrale control of most vital

aspects of labour relations conciming bargaining, conciliation and industrig dispute

enquiry under his own authority. That was *deed what the new Act did. eS

Conciliation officers were given the authority to act in place of a conciliation b o a .

whei-e'they considered referral inadyisable, by making recommendations with the same

force &d effect, as those made by a 'board." Whereas the ICA Act had not directed a union

as m the method of approving or rejectin.iCa board report, the Labour Relations Act now

instructed a vote of "the employees in the unit affected," as in thk case of a strike vote under

#

the old Act. Now non-union employees could decide on contract issues, removing an

important incentive for joining a union where membership was not required47 The Act's

, strike conkol provisions built upon those of the ICA Act. 'The effect of any strike vote *

k would expire after three months, and 48 hours written notice of intention to strike became - mandatory.& Adjudicgtion as to the legality of a strike wasstake; from the jurisdiction of

the minister and given to a supreme court judge. Before, discretionary power to cancel

certification on Bccount of an illegal s tme had rested with the LRB. The ~ o & d had ":., . 4

refrained from using it except in cases affecting small groups of employees.\ The IWA

strikes of 1952 and 1953 had indicated the inability or unwilIingness of the Board to act in

this regard.4? Now, where a judge certified a strike to be illegal, he was also given the . discretionaj power to decertify, and' declare assignments of wages and collective I %

agreements null and void.50' The Labour Relations Act was, in short, a thorough revision . - P -

of thC industrial relations staqutes and included changes to various other parts of the law,

. such as those dealing with certificati~n.~~ 3

On 18 June, Lyle Wicks announced that the inted member3 of the

Board of Industrial Relations (already responsible of such things as the

minimum wage and hoirrs of work replation0 would assume in entirety the newlydefined

duties of, and, in effect absorb, the LRB. 'While the Board of Industrial Relatioqs had on it

members with trade union backgrounds; this was the.fvst time since the inception of the

LRB that labour did not have its own nominees to represent it as part of the Htate

In spite of the fact that the labour movement, including the &A, railed against Bill

28 and the effective disappearance of the LRB, in many ways the Labour Relations Act was 7

consistent with the "new pattern" in industrial re-s as outl&d in the Moms-Wh

bluepriqt for change. Like the new regime in the IWA, it centralized pbwer over vital

matters of collective bargaining an@$tyute settlement, removing them from public scrutiny -.?*

and popular conwol, and further di'scouraged the use of strikes as a negotiating tool in the

name of industrial harmony. The cohvergencc of a new labour relations act 'md a new

business approach to trade unionism by the IWA waq no coincidence. Ever @nee 1937,

when the first ICA Act was passed, changes to labour legislation had been closely bed to

developments in the province's largest industry. Thjs case was no exception. The union's

1954 negotiations serve to illusmite the point.

Using the revised negotiations pmedures, the District Policy Committee developed , L

aprogrammatic resolution from convention proposals that would serve as the basis for the

1954 bargaining agenda. While convention resolutions had called definitely for a wage

increase, the Policy Committee urged a different approach at the March Wages and Contract

Conference. The main confer&xe session was preceded by a four-day preparatory meeting

of the Policy Committee, District staff members and the International Research

Department's Director, Ed Kemey. The latter was a university economist, and consultant

to both industry. and unions, who had helped establish labour-management institutes at

several American universities prior to corning to the IWA. During the preconference

sessions he presented to the Policy Committee statistical material relating to economic

trends in the lumber industry, on export markets and general levels of hu~iness activity,

upon which basis it was decided to f&ego any wage demand for 1954255. The Wages and

Contract Conferencecould do little but adopt this proposal @orb the experts.53

In announcing the intentions of the union at a press conference broadcast over

CXNW radio, Morris explained:

We are concerned that the employers should not find cause in any new wage demands for curtailment of production or reduction of the workforce. We have reasonably exact kn ledge of the requirements which will be Y pliiced upon them throughout the coming year to qmintain and stabilize their export sales on a sound competitive basis. We are therefore prepared to .renew the contract, incorporating therein the present wage scale, that the employers may have the utmost scope in planning to meet all emergent contingencies in the export trade. We will expect the employers to reciprocate and take all possible measures to retain the present workforce in continuous employment. . .(and) by agreeing to a revision of the contract with respect to,working conditions in such a manner as to remove injustices

an4 promote stable and efficient labour-management endeavour to expand' the market for B.C. lumt~r.5~

lp In exchange for no wage increase, the union demanded six additional paid statutory

holidays, full union security, day rates for piece workers, retention of seniority d-g lay- - off, no exclusions to Sunday overtime, a job analysis programme, an empioyer-*aid

medical services plan and k e transportation to the job.S5 Among other concerns, the

- industry balk& at union shop, and in May talkshroceeded to the conciliation officer stage.

. By the end'of thd month a "package" deal had been agreed upon floviding Wee extra

holidays, seniority'retention, inclusion of fallers and buckers in the wage schedule, and a

promise of further negotiations on shingle rates. The main reward for the union's

'reasonableness on wages was the granting of a compulsory check-off for all new

. . employees after 30 days. In exchange for acknowledging the industry's need for economic

security, the industry would acknowledge the union's, but not without its pound of flesh.

Board rates iri logging camps would be raised by 25 cents. The union had fought for years

to have that issue brought onto the collEtive bargaining agenda, and now that it had been,

the employers took the opportunity to exact an industry-wide hike, in one fell swoop;

something they could never w a g e previously. Moms explained to his members in a

"strictly confidential" memo on 28 May that the operators had disclosed the results of an

"exhaustive cost accounting" on board and lodging "which established beyond any doubt

that heajr losses have been incurred." The union's auditors had been invited to examine

the companies' books.56

Morris' rnern0,5~ in addition to explaining the content of the settleme t to local C officers, also took great pains to justify the new business approach to procedure fo%owed

in these negotiations. The Policy Committee found itself in a slightly embarrassing

situation inasmuch as District One w e officially opposed to the Labour Relations Act, and,

in fact used its imminent proclamation as an excuse to settle quickly so as to avoid its

onerous terms. At the same time, Morris noted that Conciliation Officer Reg Clements,

anticipating his new powers d e r the Act, at one poXt during negotiations refused a union

recommendation for a conciliation board and forced discussions to continue. As it turned

out, the union Negotiating Committee felt it benefitted by this new approach. Instead of ,

acting as a mediator between the separated parties, Clements arbitrated at joint sessions. '

When the operators demanded from the union an "honest package prqmsal" instead of a

discussion of single clauses, the union complied in order to gain any advantage that might

possibly be secured from conferences with the Conciliation Officer present. The

Committee was certain that it could'get a better deal by working through Clements, given

his determination to get a settlement, than it could at a full conciliation board hearing. That

strategy, explained Moms, required the temporary cessation of publicity. The union had ,

had two choices: ". . .either to discuss openly the trend of negotiations and thereby discard

excellent chances of a settlement, or maintain the pressure on the operators through the

Conciliation officer and do their work silently, confining discussion to executive circles.'**

Dwing these confidential sessions it became possible to thrash outdetails of a package

proposal with complete frankness: "Both parties could undertake more genuine bargaining,

and actually the Committee engaged in some of the sharpest and most determined

bargaining yet known." Although this stage of conciliation took more time than usual, the

Committee "took advantage of the opportunity to do what is usually done & the

union bargains with the support of a solid strike vote." That was the message that union t>

speakers were instructed to deliver to the ranI~-and-Ne.~9

In an editorial entitled "Forging Ahead," the Lumber Worker explained the new

approach to the m e m k h i p in simpler terms. It would have been easier at times to call a

Wt and take the issues to a strike vote. "It takes skill, patience and endurance to battle with

the employers until a showdown can be reached at the bargaining table," the editor

maintained. "The alternative course is not at first the easier course, the one of least

resistance for the negotiators, but one which transfers the burden and possible sacrifices to

This statement of union collective bargaining policy was the exact antithesis-of what

Pritchett had set out to try to accomplish after the war, without much success. - It explicitly

drew a hard, fast line between workers and negotiators. It was the skill of the latter, sitting

across the table fiom men with whom they shared a good understanding of conditions iri

the industry,61 that was the real weapon in the arsenal of the-new business union. The

membership would be spared any burden or sacrifice, but also any voice or involvement

until the deal was done. If not everyone agreed with this procedure, in 1954 at least, 74

percent of those voting favoured acceptance of the proposed terms.62

After 1954, the die was cast. In 1955, in exchange for a two-year agreement, the

union received five cents an hour in each year, with an additional paid vacation, travel time

and fare allowance for loggers, stand-by time payment for shingle workers, a joint job ).

analysis in plywood plants, and some other minor amendments. These working condition

improvements were heralded as a "revolutionary change in the attitude" of employers. The

two-year agreement was needed, according to union spokesmen, so as to provide the

industry with an opportunity to stabilize its prices and its marketing plans in relation to the a

increased costs of production entailed in the new contract benefits. The longer term

enabled the union to bargain for a "bigger package" and get concessions that were fvmly

refused for a one-year term. At the same time, the union's economic analysis indicated it .

wage gains two years ahead. Strike action might have

but only at the expense of these other valuable

ob ihed only after "extended and - deliberate

discussion" with the employers as they presented many complications. It could only be

concluded, District spokesmen were instructed to inform the membership, "that such

subjects might easily be sidetracked in mediation proceedings conducted during a strike, or

even while a strike deadline is pending.'*

Fringe benefits, which replaced $ages as the main item on the union's agenda,

could only be obtained through extended contract terms and by foregoing the strike

weapon. Once rank-and-file economic power was introduced into the bargaining process -

by way of a strike vote, the skills of the negotiator lost their value, the bargaining agenda

returned to &re familiar contract features like more money, shorter hours and longer

vacations. The bargaining agenda and the bargaining prwess were intimately linkd.

Pritchett had endeavoured to enlarge the procedure, and involve the rank-and-he through

on-the-job action, referendums and other tactics, designed to force items onto the agenda

which the operators wanted to avoid discussing on an industry-wide basis. Such rank-and-

file militancy around economic issues might then be-transformed into political action of the

working class to effect more fundamental social change. Moms, on the other hand,

endeavoured to narrow the procedure, exclude the membership as far as possible, and :

focus talks on i t e i s that business-minded men with a mutual interest in the health of an

industry could discuss in a civilized fashion. Fundamental social change was not part of

the trade union agenda, in fact, was no longer necessary given the opportunities for *

progress within capitalism provided by the new pattern of industrial relations.

At the 1955 convention, having just fully launched the union on its new course with I

the revolutionary idea of no wage proposal, Morris gave an eloquent dissertation in answer

to his critics, who were appatently not few in number, on the new business unionism. In

this speech he encapsulated his, and his International mentors', conception of the inter- *

rehionship between process and content in industrial relations, and how it differed from *

that of his predecessors:

I suggest that it is important that we should be wary, not to be trapped into a hidebound observance of the old ways that should now be scrapped. We are living in 1955, and we should not allow our minds to function with 1935 habits. We must at all costs remain loyal to Trade Union principles and ideals, but in bringing these principles and ideals into realization, we must pay the bill in today's currency.

Let me illustrate what I mean. One of our members at a weekend institute in the Interior raised this question: Why don't we use the same methods that were so successfid for the I.W.W., away back when? Well, I would be the first one to give a full measure of praise to the I.W.W., because I worked in some camps that had been cleaned up by the I.W.W. in days gone by. Using their methods of direct action, they did a job that had to be done at

that time, but I suggest that it is obvious to all of us that to rely on such methods today would be as though we marched the Woodworkers armed with bows and mows tcr meet a contending force equipped with tanks and atomic missiles. The LW.W. did not survive as an effective force, because we moved into an age where such methods merely invited a form of brutal and ruthless oppression for which our opponents are only too well equipped.. . =,

We should quit being romanticists about these kind of things.. . .The only sane attitude with regard to our work is to set ourselves a reasonable target of achievement, outlining it exclusively in the realism of more bread and butter, with jam on it, for our people.. . .The final test of our effort must be - the actual wifining of our goal.

We may not get there over night, we may not get the* this year; but if we 'd

harness our resources to our purposes, as rational men and women, we will get there much sooner if we do not waste our energies merely staging fireworks. We will be all the more firm in our purpose if we are not q

frightened to change our ways to get results. I remind you that in Trade Union progress, the end does not always justify the means, but rather, the means often determine the end.64

We might ask then, in concluding, just'what was the result, of the IWA's pure-and-

simple cum business unionism, in terns of the real bread-and-butter issues (leaving aside

the jam) of which Moms spoke. According to wage comparison data tabulated by the .

Alberni locyl, between 1948 and 1957, the IWA base labourer's rate had fallen from fourth

to tyslfth place in relation to that of other industrial and service employees in British

Columbia. During the f is t past-war inflation, from 1945-48, the IWA had recorded the

second highest wage increase in the province. During the second post-war inflation period, -

1948-51, it recorded the eighth highest; and between 1951 and 1957 the tenth highest.

Between 1948 and 1957, IWA labourers had fallen 30 cents behind similar workers at the I <

American Can Company, 43 cents behind Burrard Shipyard labourers, 28 cents behind

British Columbia Electric track labourers, and 15 cents behind pulp and paper workers.65

These findings were supported in a 1959 study, "Industrial Relations in the Basic

Industries of British Columbia" carried out by economists at the University of British

Columbia66 These authors noted that rank-and-file dissatisfaction in the lumber industry

was fuelled by wage comparisons with building construction workers with whom

woodworkers shared similar skills and occupations. Between 1949 and 1956, average

weekly earnings in construction rose by 75 percent compared to 56 percent in logging and

48 percent in sawmilling. :In -the latter year, for the fust time in many years, average

earnings in construction surpassed logging. In explaining this phenomenon, these analysts i

pointed to the fact that during two unprecedented booms marked by high heavy

reinvestment and rapid expansion in the woodworking ind"stry, the.IWA was locked into

extended- term agreements. During negotiations following each of these periods, lumber

- sales and prices were on the decline, and the industry intran~igent.~~ The new path charted a .

by Joe Moms, Carl Wihn and Ed Kemey, fit nicely into the operators' business cycleand

ensured that capital accumulation would not be threatened by an increasingly restless rank-

and-fde.

During coast bargaining in 1957 and 1958, rank-and-file militancy pushed the \

District leadership into conducting strike votes. Only the last-minute intervention of

Premier Bennett helped avert a strike on a 90 percent vote in 1957. Ironically, as in the

19.50 achievement of maintenance of membership, it was this near-strike situation, rather

than the finesse and expertise of the professional negotiator, that finally produced a union

shop clause for District One. In 1958, une9en support for a strike, depressed markets and &@

a bad fne season prevented job action from occurring. The result was adoption of the I

Executive's recommendation to accept Sloan's award of no increase.68

That outcome set the stage for a takeover of Lloyd Whalen's Vancouver local 2.-217

by a leftist coalition led by Syd Thompson and including Tom Clark9s.LPP bloc.@ ~ h i l g

Whalen tried to turn the issue into a communist plot to infiltrate the District leadership once

again, Thompson successfully steered the local election onto the subject of the no-wage

agreement and deteriorating condition^.^^ In December 1958, his leftist slate captured

control of 1-217, the largest local in the District, by a slim margin. Thompson quickly

announced his intention to back the local 1-71 loggers' call for a substantial wage increase e

in forthcoming negotiations.71 "

In 1959 industry-wide bargaining, Joe Moms and FIR'S chief negotiator J.M.

Billings, had the terms of a settlement arranged between them, but Morris was unable to

sell it to an aroused and hungry membership under the influence of a dissident left-wing

"h-8:e 0pposition.~2 In the summer of 1959, the union called its first industry-wide strike o

coast in seven years. As the woodworkers groped their way into the 1960s, the spirit of

the WIUC rested uneasily in their collective conscience alongside the new realism of the

IWA.

In a chapter entitled 'Xow the West'Was kt," "Boilennakei' Bill White, speaking

through oral historian Howard White, says of the events of October 1948, "It's always

been one of the big mysteries when guys sit down and talk about the things that happened, - how the Party with all its experience and after all the years they'd controlled the I.W.A.,

could have misjudged things so bad as they did oyer that p~llout.''~ Irving Awlla offers

this considered judgement on the disaffiliation move: "Instead of brac@s itself for a last- I

ditch effort to fight off the incursions of the international and the Congress and calling for a

referendum among its membberihip m gain a mandate for whatevtk action it took, the district

leadership reacted rashly and iiiesponsibly. It cost them dearly.'" In his illuminating

chapter on the same subject, union lawyer John Stanton provides this assessment of the 2

attempt to form a new woodworkers' union: "It was easy for those inclined to be

bureaucratic to downplay, or even to be unaware of, the difference bet6kn their views and

the concerns of the member~hip.''~ Lembcke and T a m in One Union in Wo& conclude,

"...we have found no evidence that, in the absence of intervention by the state and the

international officers of the CIO and CCL, the rank-and-file would have rejected its

Communist leaders."4

Behind these comments lies a series of related questions with respect to the split of b

1948, none of which have been properly answered previously, at least not in print. Why

was it done at all? Why was it done without more thought, consultation and preparation?

What were the expectations of the leaders of the new union? Why did not the

wdworkers follow them? Based on the evidence and arguments produced above, the

following analysis will attempi some answers to these difficult questions.

Critics of the decision taken by District Council One on 3 Qctober 1948 often base

their argument on the theoretical notion that at all costs left-wing trade unionists should stay

within the mainstream of the labour movement if they want to remain an effective force.

Considering the enormous presence of the woodworkers in the British Columbia labour

movement of the 1940s, a decision to pull out, from this perspective, was a grave

mistake-fraught with eonseqoermes for labour and left-wing pditics in general. The *

analysis produced in this study2suggests that if District leaders were guilty of an error in ,

1948, it was not one based superficially in human misperceptions nor Communist Party

dominance, buoone with deep roots in the history and structure of trade unionism in the

British Columbia woodworking industry. If District One did make a very human but .

nevertheless crucial mistake which opened it to attacks -from the white bloc, the

International, the lumber operators and the state, it was in its handling of the 1946 strike; in

particular its prolongation after the Sloan award of 1 June 1946. At that point District One

had become too puffed up with ideas of being the spearhead of a national campaign against

wage controls and wartime labour legislation. Its leadership viewed the woodworkers

union as part of a world movement of popular democratic forces struggling to realize the

fruits of victory over fascism against the new world threat oE Anglo-American atomic

diplomacy. This perception of the national and global relation of forces, fuelled by general

approbation for the role of the Soviet allies in the war, and the acceptance of communists as

a legitimate political element in wartime Canadian society, led District leaders, in 1946, to

confuse massive kink-and-file support based largely on pent-up war demands for higher

wages with support for their own political agenda. The initial very sweeping, spontaneous 8

support for the strike led them to the belief that it was really about class struggIe in the

broader, more conscious sense, against the aims of monopoly capitalism. Given their

strong belief that involvenzent in the labour movement should be aimed at transformation of

the economic struggle into class -=&by integrating economic and political issues- ,@ !

this was an honest miscalcul&~n made in $x midst of a massive industrial s t r h ; not some i I

bureaucratic illusion c o n j e up from behind a union desk. Now, true to Stanton's -d'

estimation of the growing bureaucratic confusion of a leadership cadre with the rank-and-

file, the 1946 misjudgments were in part'the product of an over-centralized organizational

structure that had been built up around a strategy of signed agreements a@ industry-wide

bargaining. But after the 1946 strike, Pritcheft led the District Council in an ,earnest - -+ s

ri

endevour b reintegrate the re-and-file back into th9fc~llecti& bargaining process. t-.

Moreover, the problems with respect to union finances in 1946 add afta grew out of an

anti-bureaucratic disposition rooted in a militant, if not syndicalist past. It is true that this . -

new effort of Pritchett and his comrades was only partially successful at best. But,

throughout the 1946-48 period, the District leadership was acutely aware of its relationship

with the rank-and-file. This awareness accounts for much of its effort to reassert-the '. 9

. fundamental principles of its trade union practice which had become submerged an

deformed within the bureaucratic smc&, not so much of the trade uni,on itself, but of

the industrial relations apparatus upon which the union had relied so heavily in its efforts to \ have those principles realized in some concrete fom. But that industrial relations

apparatus, too, was reorienting itself after the war, not just in British Columbia, but across

Nprth America. The IWA's 1946 strike served as a catalyst to that redentation in British

Columbia, and helped produce Bill 39.

From the analysis presented in the previous chapters it might be argued that had the

District leaders maintairied a proper distinction between the implications of the Taft-Hartley

Act for American labour, and the sigmficance of the ICA Act in British Columbia, they

might have judged their situation within the labour movement differently. After all, under

Canadian law, communists still held legitimate positions in trade unions and within the state +s

industrial relations structure. But the ~nternatibnal connection blurred that distinction.

Taft-Hartley produced an opportunity for the International to get rid of its left-wing office

holders. The impact on District One, through the Greenall affair and the influence of 3

District TWO, resulted in a somewhat ill-consideredrecall referendum opening the door to 0

~ I I all-out inti-cammdst iampaign. I e

>

Even if District Council One had been able to maintain the distinction between the

I ~ A Act and Taft-Hartley in terms of their direct impact on communist trade unionists, ia P

order td swive within the mainstream uade union movement in Canada its leaders would

L - 0 D

also have had to accept the consequen~es a a i f their V ~ G intimate involvement with a state- - LT

directed industtial relationssystgm which was now tuning sharply against trade union

rights md p&ers achieved during.the New lhd-world War Two period. hat @eptance. . / ,

would have meapt the m ~ e of a mili,tant programme at a time'of perceived ht&sifying L]

-

international and elms contradiotions, and of gro\lring $olitical & s i m @orn**ithin. the North ~ m e r i ~ h comgunist & m t to us$ trade union pasitions to dppose the-new . .

J / political and economic f o m t f m being constnu:@ by Ameri~an impe@m. To haifice

a militant pro&arnme joGg a~# pplitical stniggle would haw meant renouncing d

/

all thaf many of these men, suc khett, Bergren, Parkiii Ad ~ c ~ u i s h , had s t 0 4 for

%ince the inception i f the IWA aqd ~n their own eks , and in the eyes ofrnut$.df - r *.

the rank-and-file which had s u p p o r p d ' t h ~ through .the years,%it would hive deant 0

renouncing th&r right to lead the d o n its well. b . ..

. g Instead of s u c ~ b i n g ' t o bu.&aucratization and pure-hd-simple w d e qnionism, ,

J District Council One embarked oh a bold programme dur& the 1946-48 pkriod of resisting '

C the nanpwing industrial relations structure, and .&ug&i against the institu~onalization of ,

the collective bargaining process by reintegrating the d-L. ' -file intoethat process. 'That , -

reintegration would in turn enable them all the better to mobilize the wor&g - class-in a

broader reintegration of economic wi& political struggle, a kobilization subdued during the

war periad, and recommenced prematurely during the 1946 strike. Whep the ~ i s t h c t One *

leaders found themselves incapable of foll 'ng that strategy within the confines af the T mainstream trade union movement and the post-war induspial relations institutions, they

departed rathef than lose the 1-eadenhip of the woodworkers either through decertification

by%e state, imposed administration by the International, or a gradual defection and , .

splintering away of locals, sub-locak, plank and production sectors under pressure from

the forces of 'Taft-Hartleyism" bath within and outside of the union, Their departure in 4

October 1946 was as much a repudigtion of a strafegy of working within state-dmcted 4 ,-

- -430-

industrial relations structures as it was disaffiation from the continental trade union ,

. ~

movenent within which they had pursued that strate&. ...

In addition to what might be termed the internal logic bf disaffiiation, there were' i

certain external factors which supported the move, if not always directly, then indirectly, %

by establishing a political context for it. The influence of Mine Mill and Harvey Murphy in ,

the affairs of Dis&ct has already been mentioned. If Pritchett had a trade d o n i

* /' L.,'

"sidekick" in Harry Bridges during his days in the Uni* States, so did he in Harvey .

Murphy in British Columbia. m e two were associated not only in the trade union

movement, through the BCF'L, but also through the provincial LPP. ~ u r ~ h ? s union in ., ' *?,

the Ukted States ;as the only major union oflpcially to support Henry Wallace for '

i

President. Murphy himself, was, within the ($wadian trade union and communist I

,

movements, regarded as a bit of a "maverick.'* He had little use for the party's outright

support of the CCF in 1948, as couId be well understood. One former fellow party

member, Lional Edwards, has even referred to M q h y as a "volatile ultra-leftist" with a

"tendency to syndicalism and anar~hisrn.'~ In the heat of its own battles with the broader

labour movement, Murphy's and Mine Mill's own expulsion from the CCL acted as a

strong sectarian influence on the District Council in its decision to form what amounted to a >.

dual union of wdworkers in British Columbia.

Also a factor was the general direction of LPP policy since 1946, which was

reinforced by 'the establishment of the Corninform and the two-camp policy of September at;

1947. By 1948, Canadian communists were fully embarked on an anti- Americah &sade

expressed the slogan "Keep Canada Independent." Initially, to implement this policy,

'ty at the polls to elect a CCF government. By August 1948, after the "

repudiated its Manitoba, ~r i t i sh Columbia and Saskatchewan

wings, and fulsomely ree'ndorsed the Marshall Plan, unconditional LPP electoral support

for the social demmtsbegan to wane.7 By the fall of 1948, the LPP draft programme for

its 1949 convention called on every trade unionist to support the "democratic Canadian

trend in all sections of the trade union movement, as recently demonstrated ,-- by the WC's

s u p ~ of the rights of the Canadian Seamen's Union."g

While Buck and Sdsberg were mt pushing for dual Canadian unionism as part of . .

the overall party line, they did emphasize full chadm trade union autonomy along with

full l&ur unity. As the draft progranrme instructed: "There is a growing realization in the

unions of the need to unrfy,the trade union movement around policies based squarely upon

the needs of Canadian w o r k ~ i n c l u d i n g the right of the Canadian trade union movement

to govern itself.'* For LPP national leaders, unity and autonomy went hand in hand. A

- push for full independence was not thinkable without full unity having been established.

Nevertheless, trade union independence was implicit in the p w ' s overall- line. Once

electoral support for the CCF had been shelved, the party moved towards making it

explicit. By 1952, as Norman Penner notes, in the LPP'S draft "Canadian

trade union independence was raised for the first time in party history to a demand on its

own," with the ringing phrase: "The winning by the Canadian workers of the national

independehce of their trade unions is part of the s'truggle for the independence of

Ln a sense, the leaders of the new WIUC were anticipating the national Party line,

once again, as in 1946, serving as the "spearhead" for the Canadian labour movement, but

this time against the destructive power of the right-wing leadership in the CIO and its ib

affiliates. As Dalskog exuberantly exclaimed to the delegates at the 3 October disaffiliation

I meeting: "This event is charting a new course for the trade union movement in Ca;lBda, . and make no mistake a b u t it." Objective circumstance had helped push District leaders

into taking a vanguard action. Fit would come independence, as a basis for later unifying

the Canadian and even possibly the American labour movement around a new militant r'

industrial programme in the tradition of the early CIO.

But to chart a new course for the Canadian trade union movement, the WIUC

would at least have to carry ong with it a substantial portion of the old IWA membership.

What were the strategies and objectives of the District One leaders in canying out a a

"putsch"l2 without fuller consultation with, and preparation of, the rank-and-file. Instead b

of holding back, assessing the position of the membership, and consolidating their own

position through education abd a referendum vote on disaffdiation, the officers plunged- ,

headlong into an action that was precarious at best. Why did not the officers adopt a

defensive strategy?

There appeared not to be a lot of time after the 18 July quarterly council meeting to

develop a. broad rank-and-fde support for disafflliation prior to a move by therInternational

and the CCL, But, more importantly, the question of the referendum ignores the whole

issue of industrial relations. It was not just a matter of selling the membership on a case of

the "bad" International taking District funds, firing District organizers, meddling in District 1

affairs for ulterior political reasons. The intervention, of the International was linked to a

programme of pure-and-simple'trade unionism that had made great inroads in District One, \

thanks in large part to the very successes of the communist leadership up to 1'946, working

within conventional industrial relations structures, and keeping the trade union agenda to

the fore. To win a referendum against the International would have been to win decisively

a referendum against pure-and-8nple trade unionism, against separating the pol%ical and

economic struggles, against compliance with Taft-Hartley and the ICA Act. That

referendum, in the minds of the District leaders, had already been taken in the 1947 strike

vote, and the 1948 District elktions and Fighting Fund campaign, the results of which had

been .reinforced by a lack of unity around the 40-hour logging week, shingle sawyer,

trainmen and camp board struggles.

Many commentators take as a given that the District leaders assumed the rank-and-

file would follow en masse, and thus mistakenly and foolishly ruled out a referendum

appr*ach. In fact, in large part the reason the District Council voted to split from the IWA

was that the rank-and-file would no longer follow them in substantial enough numbers to

ensure that they could defend themselves against a major challenge from Fadling, Mahoney

d. It was not a case of the union ' crats" being unaware of the difference between i

their own views and the come the membership.l3 It was that very awareness and a

, clear understanding this difference would have on their continued ability to

lead the District that "putsch" decision taken by the District officers.

"On the coast there were serious sectoral divisions. The District's strength lay in the

logging camps. In the two large mill locals, a majority of voting members opposed the

leadership. The white bloc controlled New Westminster, were about to seize Mission and

were making headway toward capturing Vancouver. There were serious weak spots in

Alberni as well, especially in the BSW operations.

In the interior, Kamlgops was under white bloc control, and the Kelowna/Okanagan

area was, in the estimation of at least onecDistrict organizer, backward and reactionary.

Workers in Prince George had been +saffccied by t@e 1946 strike and settlement. - Far

from being a union stronghold, the northern interior was fairly evenly divided. On 26

October members voted 259 to 231 to stay in the IWA.14 As regards the interior, only in

Cranbrook and the east Kootenay area could the District Council count on solid, .

unwavering support, and indeed 1-405 ultimately became the main base of the WIUC. So

disinterested were the District officers in taking the interior en bloc: with them into the

WIUC, that the split was undertaken well before the three separate sets of negotiations and

conciliation had been ioncluded. One advantage the WIUC would have in the interior

1 would be the fact that the IWA was so poorly organized, providing less-of an obstruction in

0

terms of existing membership, certifl~ations~ collective agreements and check-offs.

The strategy of the District officers was not based on some deluded assumption that

they could take the entire woodworker rank-and-file, and all the existing locals, sub-locals

and certified- operations into the W C holus-bolus. Indeed, part of the strategy was to

shed itself of those disruptive elemen&, the adherents of 'Taft-Hartleyism," the red-baiters

and ultra-partisan social demamts. Ln greeting the delegates to the first organizational

convention of the WIUC, the officers proclaimed:

-434- b

',X + 'i b

\ This historical convention represents the best (emphasis mine) in the woodworking industry of this province; men and women rich in experience and who have struggled against high$ organized reactionary employers to establish outstanding gains in wag& &d working conditions for the woodworkers in British Columbia

History was repeating itself, the delegates were told. Just as 11 'years before, the . Federation of Woodworkers had been formed leaving behind the employers' collaborators

led by Big Bill Hutchinson, so now the best elements of the IWA were doing the same to

"Fadling and his cohorts."l5

Pritchett, Bergren, Dalskog and others involved in the new union, understood from

dint of long years slogging in and out of camps and mills just how hard a task it wrts to

build up an organization like District One of the M A . It was for that reason that these men

were very hesitant to take the path on which they were now embarked. Certainiy they

hoped to build upon an already established base in Duncan, Courtenay, Lake Cowichan,

Cranbrook, local 1-71 and other strongholds. But based on their understanding of their

position with the rank-and-file in general, there was no expectatio~ of some wholesale

transferral of 27,000 wA members into the 'WIUC. #

For that reason, all of the very evident legal and institutional barriers to such an 0

instant metamorphosis-the local charters, existing certifications, collective ag-reernknts

did not present a real problem to these seasoned veterans of the bureaucratic wars. They

knew the WIUC would not ultimately be built through court battles over assets, charters

and the B e , nor by some automatic successor clause somewhere that would transfer all

bargaining rights over to.the. new union. It would be built from the ground up, albeit

ground already well tilled, but also well weeded. Nor was there any expectation that

disaffiliation would instantly result in the recapturing of all the funds flowing south of the

border. First, the WTUC would have to sign up members, start collecting dues through

local shop stewards, obtain certifications and negotiate collective agreements with union

security provisions.

It was even unclear under the certification provisions of the ICA Act (section 9. 1 c)

- whether or not the WIUC could legally apply for certifications in existing IWA units until

after 10 months from the starting date of the current collective agreement.16 It was

February 1949, after an intervention and an appeal by the IWA, before the LRB ruled

definitively in favour of ih interpretation of the Act allowing WIUC certification i

applications to proceed prior to the expiry of 10 months.17 0 That delay did not stop the W C from trying in the interim. Where, in places like

Cranbrook, it knew it could rally overwhekkq support, it tried defiantly to force the hand

of the LRR18 While the WIUC attempted to use rank-and-file pressure to speed up the

bureaucratic procedures of the industrial relations apparatus, the IWA, true to form, did its

best to use all the legal and hstitutional vehicles at its dizpoposal to foil the organizational

attempts of the WILTC. The so-called "battle of Iron River" at Oyster Bay near Campbell

%ver demonstrates in practice two different approaches to industrial relations embodied in

the two rival unions as they struggled for control of the woodworkers. When the

MacMillan-owned logging operation fired thtee WIUC fallers, the IWA accepted the

company justification of dismissal with cause. WlUC sympathizers threw up pickets at the

gate of the operation. The crew of 99 was about evenly divided in its loyalties. The IWA

declared the strike illegal, but its members refused to cross the picket line. Alsbury

informed the LRB that the WIUC was obstructing his members. But as the company made

no move to evict the crew from company houses near Christmas time, the police had no

pretext to interfere. Alsbury arranged for IWA local leaders to meet with the Vancouver

Committee of the LRB regarding a planned attempt to cross the line in the presence of -- provincial police. With an action plan drawn up, the IWA and the company both asked the

LRB to declare the strike illegal, which it did. On the basis of that ruling, and with the

support of the Provincial Police, on 8 December 50 IWA workers crossed the illegal picket

line, provoking a violent clash during which Alsbury sustained four broken ribs. Warrants

. and arrests ensued. The following day a 40-man WTUC picket line faced a beefed-up

delegation of 170 IWA workers, including reinforcements from nearby camps in Alberni,

Campbell River and Ladysmith, and aided by 22 Provirrcial Police. Sporadic clashes

continued, but the IWA called in more reinforcements until its forces numbered 300. On

15 December 1948, company representative Van Dusen advised the LRB that the camp was

closing for Christmas, and expressed his appreciation for the way the Provincial Police

handed their part. l9

In its attempt .to establish itself as a dual union of woodworkers in British

Columbia, the WIUC did not hold back from engaging in militant and illegal actions

reminiscent of the days at Blubber Bay, the early organizing drives on Vmcouver Island

and the 194647 strike and job actions. If it were going to win members it would do so on

the basis of an aggressive, fighting programme of trade union action. The IWA, remaining

true to the spirit of Taft-Hartley, chose to utilize the letter of the law, the industrial relations 0

apparatus and the forces of state coercion to win over the hearts and minds of the rank-and-

file woodworkers. Why the IWA succeeded in its approach, and the WrUC failed needs ,

now to be explained.

Fint, the question needs to be reorganized according to the expectations of the

W C . That union did not expect a quick mass exodus of IWA members in& its ranks, so

why should historians? But-why did not even the mainstay loggers locals turn to the

W C gn masse? There are no easily available overall data on W C membership during

the period of intense rivalry to the end of 1949. What documentation is available, in the

fonn of IWA organizers' reports, indicates that the WIUC did indeed have considerable

initial success, considering the obstacles in its way. Not only in Cranbraok, but in several

Queen Charlotte and Vancouver Island logging operations, the W C either held a majority

of members or a solid basis for a certification drive. But even in operations where the IWA

was weak, the organizers' reports inhcate a high percentage of "fence-sitters"-workers

waiting to see which way the fight was going to go before jumping to either union. By the

-437-

summer of 1949, it appears, the IWA had reached a point of having a critical mass in the

logging camps &Gent to cause the fence sitters to go with itZo

This phenomenon points up two problems for the WIUC. There was no'real

industrial relations structure for Gnce-sitters to follow the W C into-just a new dual 0

union movement with a declaration of independence in hand, and a somewhat poorly

explained set of ambitious objectives. There was no more reason (in fact less given the

pRsence of another established union) that woodworkers should have joined the WIUC

than that they should have joined the IWA that way when it was originally formed in

British Columbia in 1938-40. If there had been a general feeling amongst woodworkers

that there was about to k a mass move to the WIUC, then probably more individual fence-

sitters would have gone that way before the summer of 1949, secure in the knowled e that f the WIUC would actually'supplant the TWA as bargaining agent. But most workery shared

the WIUC leaders' expectations that it would be a long struggle to build a new udon. The

very definition of the WIUC as a dual union of "the best elements" was a-self-fulfilling

prophecy.

Loyalty to WIUC leaders was not fundamentally a question of whether a worker

was pro-communist, merely non-communist, or anti-communist. The communist

connection of District One's leaders had not been the reason that woodworkers originally

chose to follow them, nor was it now the main reason they chose not to. It was not now

primarily a question of political loyalties, but rather a question of being for or against the

kind of institutionalized, pure-and-simple trade unionism that was very much the legacy of

previous years of militant struggle led by the communists. The large majority were for it,

or at least resigned to its ascendancy in the trade union movement.

This legacy was reinforced by the Fading-white bloc coalition, which took up the

legalistic approach stridently, and as an end in itself, not as the communists had, as a

strategy for consolidating positions in the trade union movement in order to further a

broader class struggle. There can be little doubt that in the minds of woodworkers in b

0

5

general, Fadling and the white bloc, with the ower of the state and the employers behind - \p -

them, represented a much better chance of h i z i n g one very significant trade union B

W t

objective-legitimacy-in the form of full uniob security. Had District One achieved a 1,

union security clause prior to 1948, it would have mdereut much of the power of the white a bloc, and much of the impact of the International' ,message. A decent union security

clause would ha\;e given fie District leadership a gea& legitimacy in the eyes of the rank-

and-file, as w,ell as ex& power td discipline and hold in check internal political opposition.

The employers knew that, and so resisted in order to keep the union vulnerable to attack.

That had been tdeir project since the inception of the IWA in British Columbia With the

- departure of the communist leadership, the likelihood of the IWA winning union security

increased dramaticdly. Once thar happened (as it did d g the 1950s), the job of anyone

not a member of the IWA would be in jeopardy. The power of that argument, given the

industry-wide bargaining agency status of the union, would serve to discourage even loyal

loggers, let alone fence sitters, from joining the WIUC. Union security would mean job

security--but only for those within the IWA. .,

Finally, what was the attraction to the rank-and-file woodworkers of a new "all-

Canadian" bade union, led by men who seemed to embrace fully the LPP line on Canadian

"independe'nce?" In his published reminiscences, Tim Buck offers some valuable insights

into @e attitudes of the working class on the Party's new national question:

I must confess that I received the shock of my life when I went on tour in .

1948 and 1949, during that' winter, and found that, in a great many places such as Windsor, Vancouver, Trail-places where our Party was strong and where we had for many years received massive support-the workers didn't like my position. Their amtude was: What difference does it make to me if the company that exploits me is a Canadian company or an American company? If I've got to be exploited, I don'tcare who it is. I just want to *

get the most I can for my labour.. . .21

Buck's disappointment testified to the economic pragmatism of even those "best elements"

of the Bntish Columbia and Canadian working class, as well as a general acceptance

amongst workers of Canada's integration with the United States, and all that implied for the h -

future of the trade union movement. AS h e WIUC set out to chart a new course for the '

Canadian trade union movement, it appeared hopelessly out of step with the political and

economic forces that were structuring the lives of Canadian workers. 4

List of R e e d s a n d m Cm!d 1n Nom . . .

Add. Mss. 1057 Gordon Sloan, Files and notebooks regarding industrial - arbitrations undertaken as arbitrator, 1943-1958, Public

Archives of British Cohmbia (PABC)

. . COFI h

FIR File - ~ighting Fund .

FIR Old Arbitration Files

GR 1038

DNA Records

Records of the Council of Forest Industries, University of British Columbia Library - Special Collections Division (UBC-SC)

Records of Forest Industrial Relations i td . , Circulars to - member companies; Forest Industrial Relations. Ltd., Vancouver

Records of Forest Industrial Relations Ltd., Master Agreement, Negotiation Files, File on IWA Fighting Fund, June 1948 - August 1948

Records of Forest Industrial Relations Ltd., Old Arbitration -

Files, Forest Industrial Relations Ltd, Vancouver

British Columbia, Records of the Labour Relations Board (minutes of meetings), PABC

British Columbia, Records of the Department of Labour (files of conciliation commissioners appointed to investigate disputes under the Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Act), PABC

British Columbia, Records of the Labour Relations Board (correspondence, reports, briefs, memos regarding the establishment and operation of the LRB), PABC

British Columbia, Records of the Labour Relations Board (correspondence, reports, briefs, memos regarding activities of members of LRB, 1948- l952), PABC

British Columbia, Records of the Premier's Ofice, PABC

Records of IWA Western Canadian Regional Council No. 1, UBC-SC

Pritchett Papers Harold Pritchett-IWA District Council No. 1 Papers, UBC-SC

T TuRB

Stanton Papers

Canada, Records of the Department of Labour, National Archives of Canada (NAC)

Canada, Records of the National War Labour Board, 194i - 1947, NAC

Canada, Records of the Wartime Prices and Trade Board, NAC

Records of the Trade Union Research Bureau, UBC-SC

John S tanton Papers, UBC-SC P

w -------#

-------fl EH.Carr,WhatisH&~xy /--- ? (London: Penguin Books, 1964), pp. 123-24.

2, bid., pp. 27-30. -

3. EP. Thompson, m e Pov- of Ot- (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1978), p. 187. -, e

4. Patricia Marchak, 'The New Economic Reality: Substance and Rhetoric;" John hfdcolmson, 'The Hidden Agenda of 'Restraint';" Philip Resnick, ''The Idedogyd of Neo-Conservatism," in Warren Magnusson d., eds., The New Reality: The ' . . . . cs of Re- m R m h C o l u a (Vancouver: New Star Books, 1984).

8

5 . See section on historiography below for references on industrial relations literature. >

6 . See section on historiography below for references on the relations between the Communist Party and trade unions. -.

7. On the history of the radical left in British Columbia see, among other important A+ works: Paul Phillips, 'The British Columbia Labour Movement in the Inter-War 8.

Period; A Stpdy of its Social and Political Aspects" (Ph.D. thesis, University of London, 1967k Phillips, s o Power Greater: A Century of lLat>our in B& . . Columbia (Vancouver. B.C. Federation of Labour, 1967); A. Ross McConnack, Reformers. Rebels and Revolutionaries: The Western Can

o v e m . 1899- 191 9 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1 . . . %

Schwantes, Bdical H-ur. S o c ~ a l l s m d Refom dn W-on 1-

1- 1885-1917 (Vancouver: Douglas and McIntyre, 1979); Donald ant Workers 'm

and Stuart Ltd., 1980); Martin Robin, Radical. Polihcs and Canadian Jdabour. 1880- 1930 . . (Kingston: Queen's University Industrial Relations Centre, I=); David 3. Bereuson, Fook

semen: The Rise and F d of the One Blp U n i ~ (Toronto: McGrawEIill Ryerson Ltd., 1978); Gordon Hak, "On the Fringes: Capital and Labour in the Forest Economies of the Poh Alberni and Prince George Districts, British Columbia," (Ph.D. thesis, Simon Fraser University, 1986). Ross A. Johnson,

d ."No Compromise-No Political Trading: The Marxian Socialist Tradition in British Columbia,'' (PhD. thesis, University of Brit$hColurnbia, 1975).

I

The Woodworkers' Industrial Union of Canada was the breakaway union established by the Communist leadership after they left the IWA in 1948. Nothing of subsmnce had as yet been written on this mion.

8. David Montgomery, "American Workers apd the New Deal Formula," in "& Montgomery, Workers 1 in Am- (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, l979), ,p. 17 1.

. . 9. Gary Teeple, Marx's Cnoaue of ~olitics. 1842-1 847 (Toronto: university of .

Toronto Press, 1984), p. 2 15. In Teeple's qnalysi~ the proletariat is an essential

-

part of the "real existing means" of owcoming the "pl e x i s m of pzivitte property" and a key to understanding Marx's critique of politics as ultimately grounded in the realm of practice. The "necessary" divorce between "~~&tionary political practick* and Marxism which has characterized the entire history of - D

'Western Marxism" is succinctly analyzed by Perry Anderson, -ens w We- (London: Verso Editions, 1979). Quotation from p. 42. - On the "Conception of Praxis in Marx" see Adolfo Sanchez vazquez , .m Philosophv of (Londoh: Merlin Press, 1977), pp. 92147.

. Teeple, m ' s C n ~ u e of Pol i t i~, pp. 192-97.

w %

Jerry Lembcke and William Tattum, h e Zfni~g m Wood . - .

(Madeh Patk: Harbour

(Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1973). John Stanton's three chapters on the IWA, written in the genre of reminiscences of 'a pioneer labour lawyer come cbsest to addressing the relationship between trade mion polhics and industrial relations, though limited in their episodic and personalized perspective. Stan~on, Never Sav Die: The and M s of a Pioneer Labour Lawver (Toronfo: Steel Rail Publishingi 1987). . On the history of the development of industrial relations in Canada see: ah Craven, " u a r t i a l :" Industrial Relations and the Canadian State, 1900- 191 1 (Toronto: U n i v e s f Torqnto Press, 1980); H.C. Pentland, "A Study of the Changing Social, Economic and Political Background of the Canadian System of Industrial Relations" @raft Study prepared for Task Force on Labour Relations, 1968); Daniel Coates, "Organized Labour and Politics% C a W : The Development of a National Labour Code" (Ph.D. thesis, Come11 University, 1973); Peter J. Warrian, '"Labour is not a .&mrnodity:' A Study of the Rights of Labour in the Canadian Postwar Economy, 1944-1948" (Ph.D. thesis, University of Waterloo, 1986); Laurel Sefton MacDowell, "m K i r m e . ." me cjold M

of 1941-4.2 (Toronto: Uqiversity of 'bronto Press, 1983); MacDowell; "The Formation bf the Canadian Industrial Relations System During W w War Two,"

urAe Travailleur. 3 (1978): 175-96; MacDowell, "The 1943 Steel Strike Against Wrartime Wage Controls," T r a v a , 10 (Autumn 1982): 65- 85; IFeremy Webber, ' P e Malaise of Compulsory Conciliation: Strike Prevention in Canada During World War a" L&our/Le Trav& 15 (Spring 1985): 57-88. A recent exception to the focus in the literature on central Canada and the federal s t a ~ is Alvin Finkel, 'The Cold War, Alberta Labour and the Social Credit Regime,"

American literature on the subject which I TomJins, The State

pas: Labour America. 1 880- 1960 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985); Howell Joho Harris, Th e Right to Manage. - I n & d a l Relations Policies of Americas

. . ess in the 194% (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1982); Nelson

Lichtenstein, Cabor's War at Home: The CIO in World War rI, (Cambridge: Cambridge University l?ress, 1982); Montgomery,* "American- Workers and the New Deal Fornula;" Stanley Aranowitz, Working *s Hero: A New S w - T a x mew York: The Pilgrim Press, 1983). ,

\ G -443- . + 0 F i ' i ' . e

u e . - -

Intro'duction Continued . b cC + t e

B '. * D

=.+

14. Leo Panitch and Donald sward, ~ h e ' ~ s n F- a - h 2 From :. . . on R e n s i a (Toronto- 1988). This i$tHe '.% . up&ted, revised edition of their 1985 publi~ation, om Consent to C m -.A

Z

parallel study for US labour is Richard Edwards % Michae1Pode"""f4"(i.hee "' Le

Unravelling Accord.. American Unions in Crisis," in Edwaids, d., &., ~ n i o $ & . . . 0; . .

JII Cnsis and Beyond: Per~pec x Countries @over, M-'AU~& 02 k

b ' . U

, House Publishing &., 1986). . - $ Q p " % - ..$

I D i y- -* y -

Pa@& and Swartz, W u l t on Trade UnionFFreedo~, p. 26. ' 9 % , b , - . c

&my Peterson, "Revolutionary Socialism and Industrial unrescin t h t k - b f thej. - - w ' Winnipeg General Strike; TheOrighis of Cornmupist Labour ~ n i o n b d - i ~ Europe. . - a

and North America," -, 13 (Spring 1984): 12.1". . $ = 4

, Q 5 - bid.,-p. 123. , ,2 x C y

L - " -

8-5' Ibid,, pp. 119-28. d - t

4- " . . Ian Radforth, Bushworkers a u l Bosses: - I n h e m Ontario. 1900 n - 1980 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1981), p. 126. -t i

I 4 * 0 0

Ibid, p. 134. i

L , II s

'Isheviks: The Earlv Uars of the Communist Paxp ' Ian Angus, Canadian Bo 9 ,- (Montreal: Vanguard Publications, 198 I), p. 276.

a

\ " . 6

Radforth, Pushworkef~ and B- p., 137. , - I . - . Z .

(Vancouver: Elgin Publications, 19$9), p. 85. ' Myrtle Bergren, J&&l Timber

. . Norman Penner, The C a n w Left: A Cnncal Analvsi~ (Scarborough: Prehtice- Hall of Canada Ltd., 1977), p. 142.

Lichtenstein, J abor's War at H m , p. 142. o * * - I

The liferatwe on the reiationship W e e n the Communist Party of Canaddand the . I d

labour movement consulted for this study includes of most interest: Abella,. ationalw. Comm&sm and Cana@ian Jdabolbh; P e ~ e r , The C;anadlan Id& .

and Bevond (Toronto: Methuen, 1988); W ' i Rodney, Soldiers of the Int- A ~~ ofthe C w

of Canda. 1919-1929 (Taronto: University of Toronto Press: 1968); Ivan '

.- (Towito: McClellanck - . ~vakrSmovik, The C o m r n m Party in Canada. A fistnry and Stewart Ltd., 1975); Reg Wtaker , "Official Repression' b Communism - ,

lhr@g+Wyld War 11," aburn R T ' , 17 (Spring 1986): 4 - 6 6 ; Don* - ~uldoon, "Capitalism Ukchalleng& %etch of Canadian Conrmunism, 1939- 1949" (M.A. thesis, Simon Fraser University, 1977); as well as the works by Angus, Hak and Peterson alreadymcited. -

Useful American sources, in addition to-~ichtenstein's . . Labor's . . War at Home include: Joseph Starobisl, American "Communism in Cnsls. 1943-1952

' 4

-444- - - -

I ' t

Introduction Continued k. *: - A

Lf

(Cambridge: a . Harvard Univers jty Press, 1972); Harvey A:' leven&ein, . m n l s m - An c o w i s m and the CIQ (Westpork -Greenwood Press, 1981); ,

Bert Cochran, Labor and C o m i m : The Conflict that S&jped A- Unions (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1977). t

Cha~ter One

0s: Era of the Rlacklist & the ODen Shop .

Bryan D. Palmer, W o r b C1w Ex~eri ian 1800- 198Q (Toronto: ., 1983, pp. 236-37,

on of -

A1 Parkin, "Labour and Timber: A Brief History of Trade Unionism in British Dlumbia's Lumber Industry," chapter 1 1, in B .C. Lm&d&&~ea:, 10 February 1947; Strike report, Records of The Department of Labour, (strike 7% 27, vol. 349, microfilm, reel T2760, National Archives of Canada (hered@ NAC); F.E. Harrison to H.H. Ward, Deputy Minister of Labour, 8 Odtober 1931, (strike 85), RG 27, vol. 349, microfilm, reel T2760.

Minute8 of British Columbia Loggers' Association (hereafter BCLA) Directors meetings, 19 July and 25 .October 1932, Records of the Council of Forest Industries (hereafter COFI), box 1, file 2, University of British Columbia Library, Special Collections Division (hereafter UBC-SC).

Parkin, "Labour aqd Timber," chapter 11; minutes of BCLA Directors' meeting, 20 June 1933, COFI, box 1, fde 2; minutes of BCLA Directors meeting, 23 January - 1934, COFI, box 2, folder 2; Lembcke and Tattum, M. Jeanne Meyers Williams, "Ethnicity and Class Conflic?,:"M~~d%eE,d~ ,

Mills: The Strike of 1931" (MA. thesis, Simon Fraser University, 1982.

B.C. Lumber Worker, 8 June 1935.

Hak, "On the Sringes," pp. 54-6; E.G. Perrault, Wood and Water: The Story of Seaboa

. . rd Lumber and Sh (Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre, 198% pp. 1 13-14; B.C. J.urnber W s 25 May 1935; Parkin, "Labour and Timber," -I

chapter- 1 1.

Parkin, "Labour and Timber," chapter 12, in J3.C. Lumber Worker, 26 February 1947,

Hak, "On the Fringes," pp. 213, 215-16; Parkin, "Labour and Timbtx," chapter 1 3

HL; "On the Fringes," pp. 218-20; Parkin, "Labour and Timber," chapter 13, in B-x, 10 March 1947.

Hak, "On the Fringes," p. 221.

L John Ulin&r to Pritchett, 26 February 1943, Harold Pri ett - I W A District Council No. 1 Papers (hereafter Pritchett Papers), box 8, file 15, UBC-SC.

Hak, "On the Fringes," pp. 183-84, 188 and 190. In his chapter 4, Hak gbes excellent treatment of the dual strategy of lumber and logging operators to preserve - the open shop using the blacklist on the one hand, arid techniques of corporate welfarism on the other.

9

-446- -

/ - e

Chapter One Continued

Parkin, "Labour and Timber," chapter 13; Hak, "On the Fringes," p. 226.

Donald MacKay, W ~ i r e of ~ o u d : The M w Rl- . (Vancouver:

Douglas & McIntyre, 1982), p.,82.

Minutes of BCLA Directors meetings, 19 March and 21 May 1-935, COFI. MacKay, Empk of Woo& p. 120; Pemault,'Wood and Water. 92-93; RG 27, vol. 375, strike 19, reel 72984.

RG 27, $01. 375, strike 19, microfilm, reel ~ 5 9 8 4 ; u m b e r Workery 14 March 1936.

Strike Bulletin #12,23 May 1936, Pritchett Papers, box 1, file 2.

B.C. Lumber Workef; 28 March 1936; Strike Bulletins #9 1 April 1936, #10 4 April 1936, #8 28 March 1936, #15 21 April 1936, #10 21 May 1936, Pritchett" Papers, box 1, f l e 2. The nuqbering of these bulletins s&ted at #1 again on 11 May after the B.C. Coast District Council became involved in their production.

Hugh Thornby to C.W. Bolton, Chief, Statistics Branch, Department of Labour, Ottawa, 25 April 1936, 27 April 1936 (two letters), and 30 March 1936, RG 27, vol. 375, strike 19;'reel T2984; Perrault, p. 57.

Vancouver Pailv Province, 8 May 1936; Strike Bulletins #21 5 May 1936, and #22 7 May 1936, Pritchett Papers, box 1, file 2; minutes of BCLA Directors meeting, 19 May 1936, COFI,

'nce, 8 May 1936; Myrtle Bergren, Tough Timbe Vancouver Bailv Prow r: The rs of B.C. - Their Stom - (Vancouver: Elgia Publications, 1979), p. 96;

Thornby-to Bolton, 1 June 1936, RG 27, vol. 375, Department of Labour Strike Form re Camp 10, RG-27, vol. 375, strike 19; minutes of Local 2783 Lumber and Sawmill Workers' Union, 13 November 1936, Pritchett Papers, vol. 1, file 7; minutes of BCLA general meeting, 20 October 1936, COFI.

Minutes of Conf-nce of Four Loggers' Locals, held in Nanairno, 4 October 1936, Pritchett Papers, box 1, file 8.

Minutes of Annual Convention of B.C. Coast District Council of the Federation of Woodworkers, 10- 1 1 July 1937, Pritchett Papers, box 1, file 8.

Bid.

Vernon H. Jensen, Lumber and Labor (New York: Farrar & Rinehart, Inc., 1945), pp. 203L05.

Lembcke and Tattum, One Unim in Woo& pp. 54-58.

Tomlins, The State and the Unions, pp. 118-19, 143, 188, 149. By the 1930s, it would seem, Canadian indusmal unions had become equally infatuated with American industrial unions' adoption of state intervention.

Lembcke and Tattum, One Union in W d , pp. 35-43.

Chapter One Continued

Jensen, Lumber and Labom, pp. 20445,207; Lembcke and Tattum, One WQ~LU~ . . Woo& pp. 54-55; "Notes on History of IWA," Pritchett Papers, box 3, file 12.

-V

Interview with John Stanton, Vancouver, 10 February 1987. - Ibid.

B.C. m r Worker. 27 June 1938.

Coates, "Organized Labour and Politics," p. 27; Jeremy Webber, 'The Malaise of Compulsory Conciliation," pp. 57-88.

Laurel Sefton MacDowell, "The Formation of the Canadian Industrial Relations System," p. 177.

Irving Abella, Nation-. Communism. and C a d i a n Labow p. 28.

Gates, "Organized Labour and Politics," pp. 35-36.

Minutes of B.C. District Council conference in Nanaimo, 17 January 1937, Pritchett Papers, box 1, file 8.

.Pad Phillips, No Power Greater, p. 114.

Vancouver w, 8 December 1937; Phillips, No Power Great% p. 114; B.C. b b e r Worker, 1 December 1937 and 27 October 1937. Cameron had filed assault charges against the supervisor of Elk River Timber when he had been forcibly stopped from entering camp to solicit signatures on a petition in support of the Victoria Conference draCt bill. :+ Phillips, No Power Greatex, p. 115; Martin Robin, of m t : The C o m p ~ Province, 1934- 1972 (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart Ltd., 1973), pp. 35-36; Dorothy G. Steeves, The Compassionate Rebel: Ernest Winch and the G rowtk of

(Vancouver: J.J. Douglas Ltd., 1960), pp. 107- 13.

B.C., Ztatutes, '1937, 1 Geo. 6, c. 31.

Vancouver & 4 December and 8 December 1937.

B.c., Statutes, 1937, 1 Geo. 6, c. 31.

MacKay, Empire of Wood, pp. 132-34,82-83,85. - -

B.C. 27 Ju:ie, 5 July 1939,24 January 1939.

B.c. Lumber Worker, 15 December 1937,4 October 1938, 28 July, 4 August, 8 September 1937,27 June 1938; Stanton Interview, 10 February 1987. In both the 1937 and 1938 disputes at Ls!ubber Bay, the IWA attempted to exert leverage on the Federation through a general Pa&k Coast longshoremen's boycott of Kingsley's ships and Pacific Lime Products.

Chapter One Continued

Stanton Interview, 10 February 1987; B.C. 4 October 1938; "Report of the Deputy Minister of Labour (1937): B.C., -,.1938, p. S 80.

Stanton Interview, 10 February 1987; B.C. Wo- 26 January 1938,2 February 1938,23 Fehary 1938,4 October 1938; Vancouver 24 February 1938; "Report of the Deputy Minister of Labour (1938)," B.C., -, 1939, pp. P 82 - P 84.

"Repon of the Deputy Ministeraf Labour (1939)," B.C., Sessional P- 1939, pp. P 82, P 89 - P 90; l3.C-r W e , 2 March, 15 March, 13 September 1938.

"Report of the Deputy Minister of Labour (1938)," B.C., Sessional Pa~ers, 1939, p. P 83; B.C. Lumber Worker, 19 April 1938.

B.C. Lumber Workex, 4 October 1938; John Stanton, Papers, box 6, file 14, UBC-SC. In at least one instance, C. Stubbs from Gibson's Landing was taken off road work he had been doing for several months for refusal to cooperate with police efforts.

w. Lumber W o r k , 26 April, 4 October, 10 May 1938; "Report of the Deputy Minister of Labour (1938)," B.C., Sessional P- . -

1939, p. *P 83.

Award of the Board of Arbitration, 11 May 1938; "Report of the Deputy !Minister of Labour (1938)," B.C., Sessional P w , 1939, pp. P 88 - P 89; B.C. Lumber Worker. 4 October 1938.

I

B.C. Lumber Worker, 4 October 1938; Vancouver &n, 17 Septeyber, and 20 September 1938.

Stanton Papers, box 6, file 14; B.C. Lumber Worker, 21 June, 12 uly, 27 June 1938; The IWA in Bnhsh Columb

. . ia (pamphlet), (Vancouver: Wes m Canadian Regional Council No. 1, IWA, 197 I), p. 24.

/'

B . C . L u m b e r 5 July, 17 July, 9 August 1938; Stanton, Never Say D

1 ie!,

p. 21.

J3.C. Lumber worker,'~ 20 September, 27 September, 20 December 1638, 17 in British Calm January 1939; The IWA , p. 25; s tanton,%ever Sav Die!. pp.

24-27.

Vancouver 17 September 1938.

B.C. J,umber Worker, 20 September, 27 September, 4 October 1938; Stanton Papers, box 6, file 14.

e IWA in British Columbia, p. 24; Vancouver ~1111; 11 October 1938; Lumber Worker. 18 October 1938, 7 February 1939. The strike dragged on into February 1939.

B.C. 1.umber Worker, 18 October 1938.

Chapter One Conbed

B.C. 30 August, 20 September, 25 October 1938.

Vancouver 25 November and 28 November 1938,

Vancouver Sldg 7 December and 8 December 1938.

Aklla, Nationalism., p. 35; Viincouver h, 8 December 1938.

. . e IWA in Bnhsh C o l a p. 25; Coates, "Organized Labour and Politics," pp. 36-39,. 56-60; MacDowell, 'The Formation of the Canadian Industrial Relations System," p. 179.

Minutes of BCLA Annual General meeting, 15 January 1941, COFI.

( - %

tes: Chwter Two

e War Years:

1. Hak, "On the Fringes:" pp. 116-17, 119-20, 122, 185-89. Hak estimates that in a g o d year a coastal logger worked over 250 days.

2. Laurel s'efton ~acbowell , '-her K-," p. 17.

3. 'The Timber Control, 1940-1946," Records of the Wartime Prices and Trade. Board, 30 ~ e ~ t e m b e r 1946, RG 64, vol. 90, file - November 1946, NAC. Under the authority of the Timber Controller, west coast lumber prices were stabilized at

" the June 1940 level. In December 1941, with the establishment of the Wartime Prices and Trade Baard, the Timber Controller became a member of that body. '

During the 1942-43 period, lumber prices were adjusted upwards in response to increasing cosk of 'production caused lafgely by shortages of labour, especially skilled labour. - z+ ,

4. Minutes of BeLA Directors meeting, 25 June 1940, COFI; minutes of BCLA general meetings, 2 December 1.940,25^March 1941; minutes of BCLA 'Directors meeting, 21 April 1942, COFI. The National Selective Senice was created in March 1942. A

9. . R.G. Clements to George pearson, I May 1942, Records of the British Cohmbia Department of Labour (files of conciliation commissioners appointed to investigate disputes under the Indusqial Conciliation and Arbitration Act), GR 1073, lax 3, file 37, Public Archives of .British Columbia (liereafter PABC); memo of meeting between Frank Hall of the T i m k Controller's office, and Phil Wilson of the BCLA, and representatives' from the Unemployment Insurance Commission, 26 '

,April 1943, RG 27, vol. 137, file 601.3-10 volume 2. - 6. Minutes of BCLA general meetirig, 20 May 1942, COFI.

gi

7 . British Columbia Lumkrmm, September 1942; MacDowell, "Rememk K i r w m" p. 246, note 61; m s t r i a l Canadit October 1942.

8. , . . .

nhsh Columbia Lumberrnaq, O c t o h 1942.

9 .. BCLA Board of Directors Annual Report, 1942, box 39, COFI; BCLA memo to * Timber Controller, 23 February 1943, RG 27, vol. 137, file 601.3- 10 volume 2.

1 0. BCLA memo to Timber Controlldr, 23 February 1943.

1 1. C.D. Howe to Humphrey Mitchell, 27 February 1943, RG 27, vol. 137, file 601.3-10 volume 2.

12. ~ u r n ~ h r e ~ Mitchell to Austin Taylor, 5 March' 1943, RG 27, vol. 137, fde 601.3- 10 volume 2.

1 3. Mitchell to Howe, 1 April 1943, RG 27, vol. 137, file 601.3- 10 volume 2.

Chapter Two Continued . .

Allan Mitchell, Labour. 27 A d

A. M & N ~ ~ s , Depuw Minister of 1943; h Q a c N m to Mitchell, 28 April 1943; Mitc&ll to William

~ c K k k t r y , k i n g Regional Superintendent, UIC, 28 April 1943; Mc@nstry to Mitchell, n.&; A.H. Williamson, Timber Controller to A.M. Manson, Chairman of Mobilization Board, 1 May 1943, RG 27, voL 137, fde 601 ;3- 10 volume 2.

M i n u ~ of BCLA general m&ting, $5 May 1943, C O ~ . 1

6 - rt

Allan Mitchell to MacNamara, 20. ~ & l 1943, RG 27, vol. 137, file 601.3-10 volume 2.' % a

a*

I P . I Perrault, Wood and Water. pp. 87- 1 12;. MacKay, Empue of w e a p p . 125-33; Hak, "On the Fringes,'"pp. 54-62. i,

'f - , Flak: "On the ~r&ges," p. 64.

Pr Stephen Gray, "Forest policy and Administration in British ~oludlbi&'l912- 1928," (MA. thesis, Simon Fraser Universit)', 1982). pp. 18-22; J.J. Deutsch let a., "Econoniics of Pnmaxy Production"in British Columbia,'' irol. 1, "The Forest Product Industries'; (Unpublished M~uscr ipt , University of B ~ t i s h Columbia,' 1959), p. 36. Y .' ' MacKay, Em~ire of Woo& p. 136; proceedings of the Royal Commission on the Forest Resources of British Columbia, 1944-1945, vol, 3, testimpny of H.R. MacMillan, pp. 1263-270 (hereafter Sloan Proceedings) UJ3C-SC; i'Repori of the Commissioner the Honourable Gordon M.G. Sloan, Chief justice of British Columbia, relating to the Forest Resources of British Columbia," B.C., Sessions) PaDers. 1946, pp. Q 55 - Q 57 (hereafter "Sloan Report"); Sl'oan Proceedings, vol. 2, testimony of R.W. Hibhon, .p . W.

BCLA Board of 'Directors Annual. Report, 194-2, box 39, C,OFI; Sloan Proceedings, vol. 3, testimony of H.R. MacMillan, pp. 1272-273, and vol. 2, testhony of R.W. Hibberson, p. 991.

U

Richard Rajala, "The Rude Science: Technology and Management in the West Coast Logging Lndustry, 1890- 1930," paper presented to Fourth B.C. Studies Conference. Victoria. 7 November 1986: Safetv Branch of British Columbia

-Depanment.of ~abo&, Safety Newsletter k14, n.h., Records of the Trade Union Research Bureau (hereafter TURB) box 12, file 15, UBC-SC. A rival claim, according to Ed Gould, as the first user of the chainsaw in British Columbia came from "Gunny" and A1 Brown at Great Central Lake. Power-sawing with chainsaws was ~articularly wide-spread during the war when a shortage of woods labour forced operators to innovate to keep up with the production needs of the mills. Early saws were often heavy to carry and unreliable. Universal'acteptance in the industry took some time. In 1946, several operators w p u claim- in testimony to Chief ust tick Sloan that power sawing made it easier to"sbbreak in" new men, but did not necessarily increase prgduction. Loss of time due to equipment failure may have offset gains in productivity. That there was-some t&&in this claim is evidenced by the move after the w,ar to for& fallers la-piwn and maintain - -

their own chainsaws, a move the,,union wguld forcefully resist. ,Ed Gould, ' . . , .' . nhsh C-la s Lo Hi9 (Saanichton: Hahcdck -House ,

td., 19'15); pp. 147-53% ~ a d f ~ , &&worker$ and B o s s e ~ , '

3 PP.

,

-452- .

Chapter Two Continued

202-06; testimony of various employers at IWA "Arbitration," 29 May EMS, Files and notebooks regarding industrial*arbitrations undertaken by Gordon Sloan as arbitrator, 1943-58, Add. Mss. 1057, box 1, file 5, PABC.

- - 23. BCLA submission to Sloan Proceedings, Exhibit 248, vol. 6, pp. 2933-934; ' *

+ , TURB file on Monopoly Concentration of Production, 'box 13, file 3 1; Sloan Proceedings; vol. 3, testimony of H.R. MacMillan, pp. 1269-270. The open log - - market did not disappear but it shrank, and its structure changed inasmuch as fewer full-scale independent logging outfits were involved. The rqarket continued to be , supplied by smaller transient operations or by the surplus production of the large integrated firms. See also Deutsch d., ''Economics of Primary Production," vol. 1, pp. 42-43, and "Sloan Report," pp. Q 80 - Q 8 1.

a ,

24; "Sloan Report," p. Q 59.

25. . . nnsh Columlna Lumberm~, February 1943; BCLA Board of Directors Annual

Report, 1942. L

26. TURB, bq 13, file. 3 1. if

\

Roceedings of public hearing, 28 August 1945, on appeal to National War Labour - Board from ruling of the Regio~al War Labour Board of British Columbia, by Pacific Mills, North Coast Timber, J.R. Morgan, and Kelley Logging companies, Records of the National War Labour Board, RG 36, series 4, vol. 126, file 483, p. 14, NAC. -

Pr&eedings of the Fourth Annual Convention of IWA District Council No. 1, Vancouver, 2.3 January 1941, Report on Organization by Nigel Morgan; Pritchett Papeis, box 5, file 10.

A.H. Williamson to A. MacNamara, 15 March 1943, and Williamson to Austin Taylor, 23 March 1943, RG 27, vol. 137, file 601.3-10 volume 2; "Sloan Report," pp. Q 65 - Q 66; Deutsch u:, "Economic8 of Primary Production," vol. 1, p. 42.

Ha., "On the Fringes," pp. 122-23, 169-70, and chapter 4, Dassim; Rajala, "The Rude Science:" pp. 13- 15; Richard Rajala, "Techn%logical and Managerial Conml in the West Coast Logging Industry," unpublished preliminary report, pp. 12-13.

R:A. J. McDonald, ''Working Class yancouveri 1886- 19 14: Urbanism and Class in British Cdumbia," F.C. Studies, 69-70 (Spring-Suxhmer 1986): 67. For a description of the worker community .at Fraser Mills, see Williams, "Ethnicity and Class Conflict at .M&lardville';"' chapter 1.

' 32. J w s Robert Conley, "Class Conflict and Collective Action in the Working Class , of Vancouvq (Ph.D. thesis, Carleton'University, 1986), pp. 199-247.

33. Proceedings of the Fourth Annual Convention of IWA District Council No. 1, Report on Organizxion- by Nigel Morgan.

34. Proceedings of the Fifth ~ n i u a l Convention of W A District Coyncil No. 1, Vanc ver, 3-4 January 1942,' report of organizer- Don Barbour, TURB b x 62, file 2 r

Chapter Two Continu@

35. bid., Resolution #4, Camp Fluctuation.

36. Ibid., Secretary Morgan's remarks on Resolution #4. J .

37.- B e r g r e n , m , p p . 1.26-28. 2

3 8. Stanton Interview, 10 February 1987.

39. Parkin, "Labour and Timber," chapter 16, B.C. Lumber Worker, 21 April 1947; Bergren, m h Timbet, pp. 135 and 139; B.C. L&er Wo- 31 January 1939.

40. Bergren, "Tough Timber," pp. 148-49; Avakumovic, The Corggllhnist P a Canada, p. 148; Penner, b a d i a n Corn, p. 178; Stanton Interview, 10 February 1987; interview with Charlie Caron, 4 September 1987; interview with Lionel Edwards, 3 December 1987; interview with Les McDonald, 10 Apnl1987.

4 1. ~Bergren, "T~ugh Timber," pp. 138 and 148. '

I

42. At this time there were eight locals and two sub-locals: loggers 1-71 Vancouver; millworkers 1-74 Vancouver; loggers 1-80 Lake Cowichan; loggers and -

millworkers sub-local (1-80) Ladysmith; logger and millworkers sub-loCal (1-80) Courtenay; loggers and millworkers local 1-85 Port Alberni; shingle weavers local 1- 1 18 Victoria; millworkers local 1- 122 Victoria; plywood and veneer workers local a

1-2 17 Vancouver, bushmen and millworkers local 1- 186 Kelowna.

43. Courtenay, a major logging and milling area itself, likely was chosen because of its central geographical position with respect to the Queen Charlotte Islands, Lake Cowichan, Port Alberni, and proximity to the Party-led UMW locaL

%,'

44. The first had been defeated at the International level, though it passed in British Columbia.

- 45. Proceedings of the Third Annual ~onv&on of JWA District Council No. 1,

Vancouver, 3-4 January 1940, Report of President Hjalrnar Bergren, TURB box 62, file 18.

I l'r

Minutes of B.C. District Council Semi-Annual Conference of Camp Delegates and Shop Stewards, 6 July 1941, Pritchett Papers, box 5, file 5.

Ibib; proceedings of the Fifth A ~ u a ! Convention of IWA District Council No. 1, Officers' Report, and Resolution #4, %p Fluctuation.

W

P&ceedings'of Fourth Annual Convention of IWA District Council 'NO. 1, p. 14; proceedings of h n u a l meeting of Local 1-71, TWA, 30 December 1940, Pritchett Papers, box 8, Ne 8.

P

Proceedings of h n u a l meeting of h a f 1-7 1.30 December 1940.

50. Ibid. - L *

~3 . . :a .

Chapter Two Continued . , ,

Minutes of F w t h b " a l meeting' of Local 1-80, IWA, 10 November 1940, Pritchett Pap&, h x 8, file 10.

weedings of Annual meeting of Local l-7lY3O December 1940. Y

hchtenstein, m r ' s War at HOE, p. 12.

MacDowell, "Remember Kirkland Lake," pp. 5 and 1 1. -4

~oceed i& of the Fourth Annual Convention of IWA District Council No. 1, @

adctress to Convention by Pritchett on union organizing strategy.

bid., Resolution #4, Amendments to the ICA Act

Proceedings of the Third Annual Convention of IWA District Council No. 1, Resolution to secure services of PCLB for 1940. The PCLB 's Vancouver branch had been set up as a branch of the San Francisco-based company in 1940. In 1941, it came under the direction of Bert Marcuse, a left-wing activist and trade union organizer from Montreal, who, soon after engaged the services of a young comunist economist, Emil Bjamason. The PUB'S business was to do public relations and education work, research, and to conduct negotiations for any

trade-union. Bert Marcuse interview by Im McDonald, 17 June 1983.

Minutes of Fourth Annual meeting of Local 1-80, IWA, 10 November 1940, report by Nigel Morgan, Lntemational Board member.

a

: The IWA V- 1C.A Acf . . . . ,%

1. Thrdughout this prior to the hplkmentation of federal wartime labour regulations, PC lw, almost the entire British Columbia industry was upder the, jurisdictio'h of the provincial Department of Labour. A ~ i ~ c a n t exception was the spruce airplane productidn on the Queen Charlotte Islands.

r ' V >

2. Peme-r, . Canadian . Communispr, pp. 161 -69. 1

3

3. Whitaker, "Offidal Repression of C o ~ u n i s m During World War II," pp. 152-53.

@ 4. P e ~ e r , Commuoism, pp. 169-75. . $

5. Whitaker, Wf•’i~5al R'epression of ~ommunism'~urin"g'~orid war II,:' pp. 150-53; ' Pmer , pp. 188-90. , 0-

6 . Nonnan Pemer, d, -V Fo )It For J .&our - Now W m e d ! (Conwitme for the Release of Labour Prisoners, %nnipeg, 1941). - .

i"

7. Whitaker, "Official Repression of Combunism During W d d War 11," pp. 156-59.5 11

8. Ibid., pp. 150, 152-53. t

9. Ibid., pp. 149-52; Penner, Canadian, pp. 185-89. .

10. Proceedings of the Fourth Annual Convention of IWA District Council No. 1, '

Resolution #1-Labour and the National Emergency; Vancouver Pr- 9 April 1943; Lichtenstein, bbor's War at Home, pp. 62-63. C +

1 1. Nevertheless, an extremely complex situation produced equally inter&ting strains in the labour movement. For example, Canadian IWA-Party leader Pritchett, for one, was critical of the more emphatically anti-war policies foilowed in the International Office during 1940. See chapter four Mow, note 64. -

. 12. Lichtenstein, b b o r s War at Home 9 ' , p. 79. . 1 3. Stanton interview, 22 Octokr 1987.

14. Proceedings of the Fifth Annual Convention of IWA .District Council No. 1, Officers' Report; B . C . w b e r Workez, 3 January 1942 and 17 January 1942; Lichtenstein, w ' s W m , pp. 83-9.

1 5. Local 1-80 and Lake Logging Co. Ltd. Arbitration, TURB, box 12, file 25.

16. Vancouver m a , 28 August 1941; Perrault., We and Wv, p. 176.

17. "The Camp Guide," 23 June 1941, GR 1073, box 3, file 33; "Historical Notes: Hjalmar Bergren," recorded 16 August 197 1, Pritchett Papers, box 7, file 8; James .. Thomson to George Pearson, 4 August 1941, GR 1073, box 3, file 32; Stanton

a . t

19: "The Camp Guide," 23 June 1941 Arbitra'tion Branch (I 94 I),"' B .C Vancouver Province 28 August and 80 to Board of Arbitration in dispute

20. , - B.C. " L m W e 28 June and 20 Au 16 July and 2 August.1941, August and 30 August 1941;

+ I Guide,"6 June 1941, GR 107 C , I > .

2 1. "Report of the Industrial Conciliation and &l$mtik Branth (1941),",p. I 79.

22. Thomson to Parsley, n.d., and Thomson tp Parsley, 23 July 1941, G~=1073;'box " + 3, file 32. a * . *

. 23. Submission of IWA h c a l 1-80 to Board of Arbitration in dispute with Lake bgging, TURB, box 12, file 25.

- C . B

24. Thomson topearson, 4 August 1941, GR 1073, Liox.3, file 32. ..

Y

26. Pearson to Percy Richaids, secretary to Premier HCLrt (April 1942),.Reco"rds of "the-: Premier's Office, GR 1922, box 41, file 6, PABC. ' L - , *

I

27. B.C. m'Pr W o e 20 August 19;/1. , , . a 4

- 1

28. Thomson to Pearson, 4 August 194 f. . J a . R

29. Roceedhgs of Fifth Annual Convention of IWA District Council No. 1, Report of John Wigdor of PCLB. s

30. Vancouver fiovince, 28 August 1941. See also Stanton, EIever Sav Die!, pp. 57- 58. B 8 '

-

3 1. Vancouver gK,vince, 28 August 1941.

!- ,*+* e 33. "Report of the Industrial conciliation and kbirration Branch (1941); pp. 1 95 - I

0 * 96. , I - . ,

35. Vancouver Rovjncg, 16 september 1943. A

> . i

i'

. . *. I % -:

37: "Historical ~ o t e s * Hjalmar Berggen," 16 ~ u g u ~ t l ~ n l ; Stanton, Never Say Did, % \,- ' V *

, p, 59. I

38. Rocccdings ~f the B.C. ~is t r ic t~~ounci l Semi-hnbi Midsummer Conference, 5 July 1942, TURB, box 6-24; parkin, "Labour and 'J3imber," cbpter 17.

4 . - 0

39. MacKay, Empire of W d , p. 139 and 142; slo& ~ o & e d i n ~ s , testimony of k ~ . MacMillan, vol. 3, p. 1261 and vol. 8, pp..3$91.anii 3588; Januahy 1945; L.R. Andrews, . "Post . War Forestiy Proble&-i Industry on the West Coast," Bntlsh C w a Lumberman. May 1944, Western.

J .! % 0 .

June 1945.~ " .

Harold Pritchett, " ~ l ~ o o d ~ & & r s d e n i d ~ i ~ h t s by Compky ontinue to Fight ; i

.for Recoation," B.C. J,umber W o e A . 8 M&h 1943. 7 .

F

Thomson to Pearson, 12 May 1 9 k , > ~ k 1h3 , box 1, file 24. L , v

P - " - P I

Nigel Morgan to Adan Bell, Deputy Minister of Labour, 7 a arch lw, and Bell tp '

Morgan, 1 February 1940, TURB; box 9-1, file 3011 (ori@nAl classification- . number). =

Pritchett, " P l y w d Workers Denied Rights." . , c

13 May 1942, ~i ichet t , "Plywood $orkc;! D ~ & M B ~a&ouver News Rights;" Thomson to peaisoh, 12 May 1942,'GR 1073, box) 1 , file, 2.'

% * : o , m * @

.. ' * ' e 4

Pritchei "Plywood Workers &ni& Rights" Mel$ness p d Bennett to ~ear&i2@ ' . * %

May 1942, GR 1073, box 1, file 25. . . 1

Memo for files re B.C. ~ly\yoods L@, by James Thomsori, 28 Miy ' 1942, GR 1073, box 1, file 24; J.' Thoinson, memo, 8 May 1942, GR 1Q73, box P, file 24. ,-

I " I @

E.B. Ballentine to Thornson, 21 May 1942, and"Vpixial ~ k c e Issued'by 0

Employees Conference Comniittee," 29 May 1942, and Carnpney, Owen and c e

Murphy to Pearson, 8 June 1942, GR 1W3, box 1, fiIe 25; .James m w n memo for file, 30 June 1942, GR 1073, box 1, file 2'4. . b I

Cainpney@wen and ~ u r & to ~homson; 8 June 1g42, and Melsnqss . I

. t ~ Thomson. June 1942, GBY073, box I , file 25. 'e

-4 - ~ * Tho'mson to P e m n , 4 July 1942, l.973, box 1, file 24. .

+ ; %k4 %

"Majority Award of the Board of Arbi&@on in the batter of a dispute between MacMillan hdustries Ltd. ( ~ l ~ w c b d Pivision) aird its 2'September 1942, GR 1073, box 1, file 25; "Report of-phe Conciliation and Arbitration Branch 11942)," 3.C.; a i o n a l P-, 95 - F 94' .. c

'i

Vancower News Herald, 18 S~ptember 1942. R.

k Vqcouver ~ i % n c e , 19 September 1942.

,

Chapter Three Continued -

53. Pritchea to Thomson; 19 Ocsoba 1942, GR 1073, box 1, Ne 24; Union Bulletin re Local 1-217, to B.C. Plywood eri.lployees, TURB, box 13, file 13; Vancouver b , a s2

4 s Herald, 21 September 1942. 1

\

i

+

54. B.C.,&gutes 1937, 1 Geo. 6,c. 31, s: 44. !

2 .

55. Pritchen toaPcarson, 24 September 1942, GR 1073, box 1, file 24. . d

56. .Pearson to Thomson, 2 October 1942, GR 1073, box 1, file 24, . - \

57. Tho&on to ~ & n , 22 October 1942, GR 1073, box 1, file 24. J

- - 5 8. V q u v e r Province, 22 February 1943.

59. . loan Proceedings, Brief of ~loedel, Stewart and Welch LG., Exhibit 305, "01. . - 1 1, 'pp. 5 137- 139; MacKay, Emaire of W a , pp. 82-83. -, .

a,

* 60. Thornson to Pearson, memo re ~locdcl, Stewart and Welch Camp #4, Menzies * I < , . ,

Bay, GR 1073, box 1, file 3 1; see also Bergren, Tplleh Timbet pp. 198-205. - <

6 1. Thomsqn to Pearson, 13 March 1942, GR 1073, box 1, file 3 1. + .

62. Thomson to Pearson, 7 May 1942; GR 1073, box7'1, file 31; Nigel Morgan to . Thomson, Conciliation Officei, re Meniies Bay, encloses copy of John Mulroney. to Morgan, . . 30 A@ 1942, GR 1073, box 1, file 32. P C

.* 4 - 63. ihomson to Pearson, 7 May 1942; Mulroney to ~ d r ~ a n , 30 ~~d 1942; statem&

made by John Mulroney on i8 May.4942, at General Safety Meetin ' 6

1003, box 1, file 32. , 2

-1

** t 64. T.J. Noble, Personnel ~ & a ~ e r , to Thornson, ' 3 ~ April 1942, GR 1073, box 1, file

'

3 1. f 0 !As--' 0 a !L

65. M&ney to Morgan, 30 April 194; Noble to Thomson, 30 A ~ ~ I 1942; Thomson 5 <

to Pearson, 7 May 1942. *

66. Mulroney to Morgan, 30 April 1942. %

67. Thornson to Pearson, 7 May 1942. '

68. B .RE. Goult, Secretary-Registrar, Industrial ~oncihation and Arbitration Act, to F.E. Harrison, Western Representative m p m e n t of Labour, 27 June 1942, enclosing copy of repart re Labour at Menzies Bay camp of Bloedel, Stewart and Welch Ld, RG 27, vol: 41 131.

69. Statement made by J. Muhney on 18 h+-iy 1942 at General Safety Meeting.

70. Peatson td Mulroney, 2 June 1942, GR 1073, box 1, f ie 32; Godt to.Iiprison, 27 June 1942; B.C., Statutes 1937, 1 Geo. 6, c. 31, s. 8.

CXapter Three Continued

7 1. Nigtl Morgan statement to Federal ~ep&nt of Labour re Mendes Bay dispute, 23 June 1942, RG 27, vol. 417, strike 131; Goult to H h s o n , 27 June 1942; B.C. Lumber* Worker, 27 June 1942. r - J

72. G d t to Harrison, 27 June 1 9 4 2 ; ' ~ i ~ e l ~ o r ~ a n statement to Federal Department of . - . Labour, 23 June 1942; Vancouver & 10 June 1942.

>

7 3. 'Weport of the Industr+ Conciliation and~rbitradon Branch (1942)) p. F 89.

74. Resolution re dispute Bloedel, Stewart and Welch, Milizies Bay, 3 July 1942, GR 1222, box 5 I, file 5; Hart to-Dalskog, .and Hirt to Morgan, 18 July 1942, Ibid.; Pearson to Hart, 22 July 1942, bid '.-

I .

75. - MacKay, Empire of Wood, p. 36; TUW, box 13, file 31, "Monopdy Concentration of Production;" PCLB to IWA re Directors of CWL, 10 May 1944, -

i TURB, box 14, file 3. %

7 6. Jerry Lembcke, T h e International Woodworkers of America in British Columbia, 1942-1951," -, 6 ~ ( A u t ~ ~ 1 9 8 0 ) : -pp. 116-17.

, -

77.. ' Local 1-217 and C a n a a n Western Lumber Co. Ltd. (Fraser Mills), subject file, newspaper clipping, 1 1 August 3942, TURB, box 14, file 3.

* -1

1 78. Vancouver fiovince, 24 August 1942; J3,.C. Lumber Worker, 29 August 1942. a

p. 79: ~ k c o u v ~ r SLLh, 1 8 September 1942; B.C., 19 September 1942.

P.

80. F.J.- Mead, Assistant Commissioner, Director, Criminal Investigation, to Deputy '" ld . . Minister of Labour, Ottawa, 14 October 1942,RG 27;vol. 423,.striker3-57. -

-- - z

- 8 8 1. , "Circle 'F' Bulletin" (Fraser Mills), 23 October 1942, re prosecution of (%L under

ICA Act for refusing to bargain, TURB, box 14, file 3; Vancouver J 3 0 v i ~ 29 October 1942.

Confidential memo on Canadian Western Lumber Ltd., n.&, GR 1073, tpx 2, file 14..

MacKay, Empire of Woo& p. 84; Sloan Proceedings, (Brief of Bloedel,.Stewart and Welch Ltd., Exhibid 305, vol. 1 1, p. 5 137-38; "Sloan Report," p. Q 59. . ,

"Sloan Report," p. Q 59; minutes of Organizers conferences, 24 March 1944 and 22 May 1944, Pritchett Papers, box 5, file 4.

"Report of the 1ndGtrid Conciliation and Arbitfation Branch (1942)," p. 99. .

"Report of the Ind~istrial Conciliation and ~rb i ia t ion Branch (1942)," Hon. Mr. Justice Cody's "Reasons for Judgement," 27 October 1942, pp. F 100 - E-101.

87. "Report of the Industrial Conciliiation and Arbitration Branch (1942)," Schedule A.-"Judgement of the Hon. Chief Justice of British Columbia," 20 November 1942, pp. F 103 - F 104.

Chapter Three Continued

Ibid., Schedule B.-"Judgement of the Hon. Mr. Justice McQuanie," 20 Novemk 1942, p. F 104. +

Ibid., Schedule C.-"Judgement of the Hon. Mr. Justice Sloan,? 20 November 1942, p. F 105 - F 106.

Ibid., Schedule D.-"Judgement of the Hon. Mr. Justice O'Halloran," 20 November 1942, pp. F I436 - F 108.

-, March 1943.

"Report of the Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Branch (1942)," p. F 1 N).

Ibid., pp. F 102 - F 103, and F 110 - F 11 1; Award of the Board of Arbitration, Harold B. Robertson aod R.V. Stuart, 1 1 December 1943, RG 27, vol. 417, strike 13 1, Bloedel, Stewart and Welch Ltd., and Employees at Red Band Shingle Mill.

MacDowell, "The Formation of the Canadian Industrial Relations System," pp. 179-80; Webber, "The Malaise of Compulsory Conciliation," p. 84.

> f .

B.C. 15 August, 10 October, 2 November 1942. . - k

Joint Officers Report to the Sixth Annual Convention of the IWA-CIO, ~ i s t r i i t Council No. 1, Vancouver, 2 January 1943, Pritchett Papers, box 5, fde 12.

e of the C-: The End of the QeenShM

1. See far example.the work of Coates, MacDowell and Harold Logan.

Summary of IWA Case in the matt& of a diipute between IWA Local 1-7 1 and J.R. Muorgan, Kelley Logging Co. Ltd., Pacific Mills Ltd., and A.P. Allison Logging Co. Ltd., Queen Charlotte Islands, British Columbia, 19 May 1943, Stanton Papers, box 6.

National War Labour Board, PPoceedings of public hearing, 28 August 1945, on appeal of Pacific Mills., North Coast Timber Co. L a , J.R. Morgan Ltd., Kelley Logging Co. Etd., and the International Woodworkers of America from the decision of the Regional War Labour Beard of British Columbia refusing adjustment of wages, RG 36, series 4, vol. 126, file 483 (hereafter NWLB Pmceedings 28 August 1945), pp. 37-38,. 135, 17-18; "Sloan Report," p. Q 74.

Charles Pearse and A.M. Whisker to pearson, 5 May 1942, GR 1073, box '3, file 37; Summary of JWA Case, 19 May 1943,.p. 4.

- - "The Timber Control, 1940- 1946," RG 64- vol. 90, file - November 1946; British

la L u m b e m June 1942.

Queen Charlotte Islmds Spruce Production, TURB, box 12, file 17.

Minutes of BCLA general meeting, 23 JUTE 1942, COFI. - . .

Pearse and Whisker to Pearson, 5 May 1942; NWLB Proceedings, 28 August 1945, pp. 137-40.

RG. Clements, Inspector, "Report on Loggers Seeking Employment in Other War Industries," 28 April 1942, GR 1073, box 3, file 37.

NWLB Proceedings, 28 ~ u g & t 1945,pp. 25-26,55, 136. ,

Proceedings of the Fifth Annual Convention r w A District Council No. 1, Nigel Morgan speaking on~Resolution.#4-Camp Fluctuation; Summary of IWA case, 19 May 1943, p. 6. ,,,.

Proceedings of the Fifth Annual Convention of IWA District Council N6. 1, Nigel Morgan speahng on Resolution #4--Camp Fluctuation.

b . . .

13. National War Labour Board, Jbceedingi. No. 1 1. J.abciur Rela- and Wags Conditxons in

. . , 10-11 June 1943 (Ottawa: Edmond Cloutier, 1943), pp. 1003 and 1009; Summary of JWA Case, 19 May 1943.

14. Hart to Morgan, 8 April 1942; Pearson to Percy Richards (Secretary to Premier), n.d; Morgan to Hart, 16 April 1942; Pritchett to 'Hart, 17 April 1942, GR 1222, box 41, file 6.

- .

1 . .

. . . . . . . . :, . -

-462- .

, . . .

\ ,. ' . 7

Chapter Four Conhued - - - - - - __-=_r

. - .

. . . . H.A. Logan, Trade U n i m in C (Toronto: MacMillan Company o f m + . . . ' - July 1942.

e

---..& .>

J.J. Deutsch, d., "Economics of Primary Producddn in:B.ritish CfaI~iia," volume IV, "Industrial Relations in the Basic Indusmes of Briqs* Columbia," (unpublished manuscript, University of British Columbia, 1959); pp"3-43;- - - ,

- --- - . . Elliott M. Little, "~ommonsense in Labour Relations," I-al C a , , ldy- * 1942.

speech by D.R. Chant, Industrial Relations Division of National Selective Service, to Interhational Wartime Advertising Conference, 11 November i942,-1ndusu . Canada. December 1942.

B.C. Lumber Work& 6 June 1942; Majority Report of A.M. Harper and Arthur J. Turner, in the matter of a dispute between Allison Logging Company, Ltd., Keiley Logging Company, ~ t d , J.R. Morgan, members of *Locd 1-7 1, International Woodworkers of America, 1 June 1943, Stanton Papers, box 6 (henceforth Harper Report); NWLB Proceedings, No. 1 L 10-1 1 June 1943, p. 1013; Vancouver province, 27 February 1943.

NWLB Proceedings, 28 August 1945, pp. 7-8.' --

Ibid.; pp. 9-10. - ---- " , $

b

Memo of Alan Mitchell, Commissioner UIC, re phone call 'with William McKinstry, 14 April 1943, RG 27, vol. 137, file 601.3- 10 irolume 2.

Coates, "Organized Labour and Politics," pp. 87-88.

MacDowell, "Remember Kirkland Lake," pp. 108-09,206.

Ibid., pp. 224-30, 220. s ( ' A >

Ibid., pp. 231-33. r* - ,

MacDowell, "The 1943 Steel S&e," p. 70; MacDowell, "The Formation of .the Canadian Industrial Relations System," p. 190. h, Coates, "Organized Labour k d Politics," pp. 133'34, 138.

MacDowell, "Remember Kirkland Lake," p. 225.

Coates, "Organized Labour and Politics," p. 107; Indusaial Can&, January 1943.

a d m I Tnioni~~, November 1942; B.C. Lumber Worker, 7 December 1942. \

Coates, "Org'anized Labour and Politics," pp. 107, ld-05.

- i)

34.. . King's Typesxjpt Diary, 14 January* 1942, ci@ in MacDowell, 'The 1943 %eel D .O - m Strike," p. 74. e .2 Y.

0 I - * i . .. . .

Coates, ''Organized Labour and Politics," p. i46. In a private meeting wi$ the . new NWLB members in February, the govqnment gave the bard &he job of z

erecommending changes to its wage control policy and ofd.raftpg a new induStria1 , , relations order. - . % ' b

, * * d * " '; ' I

@

~ a c ~ o w e l l , ':The 1943 Steel, Strike,': pp. 64-5; Coates, "Orgkized &bur ahd Politics," pp. 128, 158-59.

A .

8 . @ *

Robin, of Pro&,,p. 44; Robin Fisher, "The ~ecline'of Reform: British Columbia Politics in the 1930s," paper presented to the ,Fourth B.C. Studies Conference,,Victoria, 7 November 1986, p. 2.

9

39. Phillips, No Power G- pp. 12&-27.

40. Robin, of Pm&, pp. 39 and 52. fi

J

4 1. Fisher, 'The Decline of Reform," p. 1 1. ~i

4 2 . R o b i n , u m , p . 5 1 , . - s r i v b

43. Fisher, "The Decline of Reform," 8. 23-4- .' Robin, , of Profit, pp. 52-62. Lf . .

44: Robin,~llarsofProfit,p.74. . .

45: Phillips, No ~ o w e r ~ ~ r e a t e r . 6. 127.

46. "Report of the Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Branch (1943)," B.C., Sessiogpl P a p e ~ , 1944, p. K 82, Table-"Number of Disputes, Number of Employees Affected, and Time Lost in WorlGng-Days, 1933-43."

"Repurt of the Industrial Conciliation and ~rbitration'~ranch (1942); Summary of I)lsputes Commencing in 1942 (Provincial). ,

"Legislative Brief Submitted to the Hon(Purab1e Prime Minister of British Columbia and Members of the cabinet re ICA ~ c t , ~ 12 January 1943, Pritchett Papers, box 7, file 5. This briefwas presented by the B.C. Executive of the TLC, Vancouver and New Westminstkr DisfrichTrades and Labur Cohcil, Victoria and District Trades and Labour Council, ~ k c o u v e r Labour Council, Victoria Labour Council, the Island Labpr Council, and the Vancouver Island Joint Labour Conference.

Robin, mars ~f pp. 62 and 78. . hdusQM ; &c. Lumber Workq, 2 March 1943.

,Minutes i f of ~istrict Council No. 1, 4 July 1943, Fritchett Papers; box 5; file 3.

Chapter Four Continued

B.C.,.-, 1943,7 Gw. 6, c. 28 (An Act to amend the "Industrial Conciliation ' ?

'

and Arbitration Act"); B.C., a, 1937, 1 Geo. 6, c. 31. t

Nigel Morgan, "Nqw Labor Bill Great Triumph for B.C. Unions," JM!. 1,- W e , 22 March ,1943. - B.C.,LUmber W&, 3 May 1943.

' P

Chapter &me, above; minutes of BCLAIDirectors meeting, 21 April 1942, CQn. - .

v

*Minutes of BCLA Directors meetings, 24 March 1942, 21 April 1942, 24 November 1942,25 April 1944.

. . - * . P 1 ' NWLB Proceedings, 28 August 1945, pp. 50-52. ., . .

NWLB Proceedings, Nosb 1 l9 10- 1 1 June 1943, p. 1008.

SummaryofIWACase, 19May 1943,p. 2. , %

Vancouver fiovinc_e. 19 ~a~ 1943; Vancouver u. l9 May 1943; Abella, - Hationalism. Cornwnism and Canadian 1 , a b o ~ p. 115. IWA District Council One had been .suspended from the CCL in January 1943 for sup~orting the ' Boilermakers union in its dispute with the Congress over the election of a- communist slate to the executive of the Boilermakers. '! . .

a .

Stanton interview, LO February Ib87; Vancouver J3=ovince, 27 February 1943. ,

-,- , = - ". Summary o f h V ~ Case, 19 May 1943; Vancouver Province. 9 Apnl194-3.

, D

Harper Report, 8 June 1943. , *

Vancouver Bovincg, 8 ~une 1943. L, -

Nigel Morgan to all secretaries of Queen Charlotte Islands sub-locals, 9 June 1943;' Pritchetj Papers, box 8, file 9, + .

C '

Miqutes of Mid-Summer Conference of District Council No. 1,4 July 1943. I -

Vancouver p m v i n ~ 10 August 1943. \ .

, - I

Vancouver Ro-, 10 June 1943. .. =.

, ~. Morgan to all secretaries of Queen Charlotte Islands sublocals, 9 June 1943. .&

NWLB Proceedings, No, 1 1. 10- 1 1 June 1943, pp. 1012, 1007-010. .

Vancouver Province, 17 June 1943. Further to establishing its legitimacy as ' .

bargaining agent for British Columbia woodworkers, the IWA, in.June and July,

a - o r ; \ ". . P 4 " .i . *

" I , - . -*, - I

e . 3 -465- , . - * - .

fB * .. .. * .. C

i . i . I * . . , - ".. * I & .. ,

C h a p t e r ~ O m i n u @ ' ' - + $ . . . . . . - * -

, fifed $plicatims vli@ the RWLB; aqd wiu grapted time and &half for aU ' , ". 'f

- worked over eight houe -@er day anadd 48 hours per weekfor most.empl6yees in . Saymills, logging camps and other , Vanhvqr 14 June. .'

I

8 . . and' 15 July 1943; B.C. i-r C '

e . -. r. , . ' . I . .

I i i,*

75. Vancouver proyince, 15 lulYs 1943; sbtonL.inieiview, Ib FebrGarp l d 3 ; . a s. Vancouver Pro%nc& 8, July 1943. , " - ..%, .

a A

* J - * Q

76. ' Minutes bf id-summer ' ~bnference .of District Cbuocil No. 1, 4. July 194% ' '

Vancouver prow, 15 July 1943. The officers %ported tliat the addition df 2000 new members since the last International rwentjon,.three aew 1ocals;bringing the total-to eigh~ five new la&es'aycilMes, and a stepped-up cvganiqon pdigramme , .

- , 9 . assist& by,- hew Interhationill organizers, had e a t l y added toto&kpres@ge! and

- k h - authority of the District Council over &e prt3vious few mntks. Other achiwments ,

included an alleged doubling of the dulktion of b e m r W e to 14,40, thed f

establishment of labo~management produqtion i.xammittees, the beghing of joint goveinment-don hi&g to k p k e i h e "shark" hiring hall, a complete survey of the *industry for future aisi&nce negotiations, arbitrations q d government briefs. '

t *

77. Lichtenstein, b b o r ' ~ War at H o w pp. 145, 154-55: 1

78. . This cis& Gas m.&e&' botkthe SU& of IWA Case, 19 Mayc1943, k d in . -'. . - . NWL$ Roceedings, No.- 20- 1 L June 1943.

7 I .

79. Vancouver SyB, @'J& 1943. " "

B

* 80. Vancbuver M n c g , 21 Jql~~1943. The operators involved were: Alaska Pine, .Alberta Lumber; Alberni Pacific Lumber, Mberni Plywood, B.C. Pulp and Paper, I3 B K Logging, Bloedel Stewart and Welch, Can&@ Forest Products, Canadian

, + ' Western Lumber, Canadian W t e Pine, Cameron Lumber, Comox Logging and Railway, Early qndBrowb Timber, Elk River Timber, Hamrnond Cedar, Hillcrest

t Lumkr, Interriatiopal Timber Mills, ~emmingren-Caberon, Malahat Logging, MacMillan Industries (Plywood Diyi 'on)','"~obert McNair Shingle, O'Brien .

' Lbgging, Pidneer Timber, salmon h= r logging, Sitka. Spruce Lumber, Straits z * . o

2 Lumber, Thurston-Flavelle, Timberland Lumber, Veddar Logging, Vicforia Lumber and Manufacturing, bhhawk Lumber, Canadian Puget Sound, Jones Lake

, Logging, Northwest Bay Logging, Royal City S&vrnills, Timber Preservers, M.B. King Lumber, Glaspie Lumber, B.C. ~anufaeturing, Westminster Shook Mills, & m e Sawmills. At the end bf the month, disputes with Lake Logging and Coniox Logping and Railway were referred lo the provipcial Department of Labour

a for arbitration over the companies' refusal, to sign union agreements. Pritchett , , apnaunced on 39 July that during the ensuing month the union planned to go into

30 to 35 of the large lumbering operations in the province seeking collective bargaining and union agreements. Vancouver 27 Jdy and 31 Jyly 1943.

8 1 . Vancower & 9 August 1943.

82. Queen Charlotte Lslands Spruce Production, ?"CJRB, box 12, file 13.

. * . Chapter ~ ~ o l r r continued . :

Vancouver 24 August and 26 August 1943.

Vanmver Syn; 3 September, 21 August, 23 August, 30 Augyst 1943. " _ I I 1 _ - c

~ a n o o u v ~ province, 31 ~ u ~ u s t 1943; t'ancouver b, 3 September, 4 September, .

1 1 Septemk 1943; 3 ..: '

* -. d r

V a n f o u v ~ ~ v i n c e 23 ~ e ~ t e m b e r 1943. = Z . ,

VEIIK:O&~ ~ov incg , 22 September 1943; Vancouver SuQ. 28 ~epte&er 1943. C 0

. >

uver Sun, 30 September 1943; Vancouver a m , 4 ~ c t o b e r 1943; JLC, r Work= 4 October 1943.-

Ya~couv& 1 November 1943. F

. a 5 _ , - , . I

Nanwuver province, 16 September 1943; Vancouver &JQ, 17 >September 1943; Nancouver - P J e , 2 lgeptember 1943., e

. x . . - . r9 1. ' ' 'Submission of W A Lbcal 1-80 to Board of ~rbitration in the Matter of a Dispute a'.

f + , , . with the Lake LoggingbCompany Ltd.," 20 September 1943, Pritchett Pap&, box -

7. file 4; '?fcpon of the Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Branch (1948); pp. 88 - K 89; "Local 1-80 and LakemLogging Go. Ltd-.: Wage Rates, 1942,"

TURB, b x 12, file 23 '(newspaper clippings, 1943, Lake Log arbitration). The . wmpany nomineek minority award called for an agreement bemeen the employe^ '1

and an employees commiitee, wieout the intervention of an outside agency.

I e

Vancouver sun, 12 htober 1943. '

-97. Vancouver ~rovinck, 13 Oct&k 1943. Government sup&vision under PC 7307 1 , _j

was strictly at the discretion of the minister who had failed to order a vote in the two " ' months following theunion's request. -See Webb- 'TTie Malaise of ~ompdsory' . . . , Conciliation," p. 68. '

't

99. ,/ Vancouver b, 16 O c t c r k r943,d

180. . k i ~ . C . & & k r ~ b r k a 18 October '1 943. I /

I . , -

10 1. No &ubt the D e p v t of Munitions and Supply wanted to avoid an extension of . the strike to tire A m Timber opeqtioq pmpk, and there was no guarantee the IWA '

would allow the government to stall c;onciliatition prodedures beyond the issuance of a bard report now that rhe iron wigiiu the fire at tfie three other operations. .

- "

. 102. , van&uv& 26 bctober 1943; NWLB, Roceedings, 28 August 1945, p. 17. e . & 3

103. 'MB Rodcedings; i8 ~ u ~ u i t 1945, p p 2:22. 'I

- .*

104 Webber. :The Malaise of cbhrpulsory CQnciliation," pp. 69~75,87-@8.; -. * 3 r?i

Y .j

Federa! ~ ~ ~ a r t x k n t of Labour News Releq, 3 November 1943; RG 22; "OL 433, * strike 387.. ,

i. - . L Y a

9 - * * B . . *

Vancobver 2 3 Ocbber 1943. . * , ! B -'. . C I

Vancouver b, 25 October 1943. %

9 * - @

v a n c o y y e ; ~ v i n c e 25 (%to& 1943. k s. sa C

Q

: ~ ~ c o u v e r ' & , 3 November 1943; Agdxment Between i e r o Timber &oducts 7 , Ltdband IWA Local 1-7 1; 29 Novembq 1943, Add. Mqs. 1057, box 1, file I, +3

0 ' , * . 0 w

1 12. Vancouve!i~ovince. 1 November 1943. a , . 0 .

5 <

1 ) . 1 13. Vancouver a 26 Nbvember 1943; ~ancbuver m, , . 20 December 1943. k d

* F 2 ;a-

3 '

114. B.C: P,umber W o r k 10 Janyary 1943. ., a N

1 em .# -. . Lichtenstein, L&or's War at Home, p. 26. a -

a

Ibid., pp. 207- 13. zi t .t %> '

-' I T 4

1. ' Mr a critical view of P.C. 1003 see Peter Warri A Study gf the Rights of Labour in the Can

- (Ph.D. thesis,*University of Waterloo, 1986). C YI

2. Minut& of District . . "uakumovic, The Co ,

li

, 9. B.C. L w W e , 6 March 1944. . I h

. ' ? .r d

4. : t

0 Y .' file 4.

6. . a ~in"utes ohs t r i c t Organizing Conference, 22 May 1944, Pritchen _, _ fde 4. Under the Tyee system a company would contract with a l a b w

84 to su"pply a certain amount of.immigrant Chinese labour for a spec workers would then be at the mercy of the contractor with regards

p* %rorking cohditions. " 13 F

,,- * I .

7. . Minutes of Quaneily District Council Meeting, 2 April 1944, Pritchett paper, box 5 4, file 24. ' u

\

B \\ 8. Minutes of ~istr$ct Ekecutiye meeting, 8 May 1944, Pritchett Papers, box 4, fde 2. . V

y. ., L-- 1P 9: Minutes of Disdct Organizing Conference, 24 May 1944, Pritchett Papers, box 5,

file 4. - @

np B

10. ~ i n u t i s of District Executive meeting, 8 May 1944, Ritchett Papers, box 4, fde 2. '+

11. I id.; ~ inuteH of Quarterly District Council Ifieeting, 16 July 1944, Pritchett 4pen, box 4, file 24.

I

* 12. Lmbcke add Tattum, Qne Un ion . in . Wood, p. 1 10; minutes of District Executive . . meeting, 22 May 1944, Fritchett Papers, box 4, fde 2; Roceedings of the Eighth

Annual convedtion of the IWA (International), 24-27 October 1944, pp. 89-91.

13. Minutes of ~istrict ~xku t ive meeting, 5 July 1944, Pritchett Papers, box 4, fde 2. In Jwe, Secretary-Treasurer E.E. Benedict, in collusion bith a small opposition bloc at &aser Mills, atmcked Pritchett for accepting a political nomination.

14. Ibid. \

1 ),J

15. - Minutes of Quarterly District &uqciheeting, 16 July 1944, Pritchett Papers, box 4, b e 24. a

Chapter Five Continued , .

16. Fvlinutes of ~ i s d c t Executive meeting, 2 August 1944, Pritchett Papers, box 4, file 'I L I E ,.

17. Minutes of Quarterly District Council meeting, 16 July 1944, Pritchei pap&, box 4, N e 24. , c I

18. Minutes of District Executive rrieeting, 13 September 19;61, ~ritcliek Papers, box-4, file 3.

19. See Trade Union Research Bureau files for several of these cases involving the IWA during the 194 1 -43 period.

20. Proceedings of NWLB hearing re Hamrnond Cedar Company, Limited and wApJ '

Local 1-367, RG 36/4, vol. 123, f ie 208, pp. 20 and 29; I3.C: Lumber Wo* 20 December 1943; Vancouver sun, 17 January 1945.

21. NWLB hearing re Marnmond, RG 3614, vol. 123, file 208, p.'29. P

22. Ibid., pp. 11 and 87.

23. Ibid., p. 16. As this award was retroactive to 4 December 1943 md'was handed down only in January 1945, the maximum applied to most women employees, though ir~ fact, it was q reduction from the 65 to 70 cent range awarded by the RWLB.

24. Ibid, pp. 83-86. In fact, the IWA's key argument had more to do with preserving job category rates for men fighting for democracy in Europe than it did with compensating women fairly. This was particularly so as the IWA brief was delivered for the union by CCL Executive Secretary Nonnan Dowd who, in his extemporaneous remarks to the board, let it be known that he thought there was "some room for equivocation in the phrase 'equal pay for equal work,' but I think the job is the factor." Dowd, who filled in at the last minute for Nigel Morgan, also

B told the board he was rather uncomfortable with the language of the brief "which I would not use myself if I were doing it." As Gidence of the continuing friction between District One and the CCL, Dowd wrote Morgan that "Yoy are aware that the tone of the company's statements and rebuttal was on a fairly high ievel.. .but b y own feeling was that in a few cases our own material made a rather bad impression by its tone." (NWLB hearing re Hammon p. 87-88 and 61; Dowd to Morgan, 13,September 1944, TURB, box 13, file 29).

t 25. V,ancouver 17 January 1945.

26. -, 2 July 1945.

27. Stuart Re~arch response to DNA Brief of 25 Octobg 1945,29 June 1946, TURB, box '12, file 12; IWA memo to Stuart Research re Trainmen, 25 October 19.45, - TURB, box 12, file 12; Records of IWA Western Canadian Regional Council, No. 1, (hereafterPA Records),~roll #I, fde -. District Contract - ~esearch, 1943-46, UBC-SC.

* .

28. Miriutes of Informal Conference on Trainmen's Problems, 30 Januarv 1945, TURB, box 12, file 12. %

29. - A: Dewhum, secretary, local 1-85, to N. Morgan, 22 November 1944, IWA Records, roll XI, file - District Contract - Research, 1943-46. <. * , '

n ' 30. Ibid. T

B * @

3 1. Minutes of Quarterly District Council 1944, Ritchen Papen, b x . 4, file 24. ,

U

32. Minutes of Quarterly District Council meeting,

33. Minutes of District Exe$utive meeting, 7 file 3. -

L

34. Minutes of Quarterly District council mee6ng,'16 July 1944, Pritqhen Papers, box 4, file 24; RG 27, vol. 3454, f ie 4-2-5-2, part 1. At the 5 July 1944 disaict . . - Executive meeting, a motion carried that all donations to the LPP b left up-to .,- '

?

individual members (Pritchett Papers, box 4, file 2). ~i the end'of 1944 the CCL's Political Action Committee endqtsed the CCF despite Millard's earlierasmkes of

9 \ its political independence. After that move, Nigel Morgan resigned from the CCL .. . committee. In January 1945, District One severed its links with the CCL-Political * irr

Action Committee ( Abella, ' C d Can-, p. 78; .- i k

minutes o f Digtrict E x e c u t i a - 1 Mtcliett Papers; bax 4, a

file 3). - A a + "J

Y

4 35. Deutsch, a., vol. 1, p. l?. Q

+ - q C

36. "~e~or t ' o f the Forest Brasch (1941)," B.C., ~ e s s i ~ n a i a ~ ~ 9 .

, 1942, p. G 21; " R e p g r t o f ' t h e F o r e s t B r a n c h ( 1 9 4 2 ) , " B . C . , ~ l 9 4 3 , p . F F 2 7 ; -

-- a " "Report of the Forest Branch (194$),)," B.C., a1 P 1944, p. BB 22; "Report of the Forest Branch (194.4); B.C., -7645, DD 28.

* ,

a 37. Allen Seager, "Sqcialists anc? Workers: The Western Canadian Coal Miners, 1900- 21," LabPvrnR TmYail, 16 (Fall 1985): 23-59; Deutsch, d., vol. 1, p. 16b.

38. Steeves; The Co-, p. 56. ' , . d - c B

39. Allen 'Seager, "Qe History of the Mine Workers'lJnion of Canah, 1925-1936," (M.A. thesis, McGill University, 19'77), pp, 199-21.3. +

40. Parkin, "Labour and ~&her,Y cha#ty eighteen, p. 6. I f

41. . Hak, "On the Fringes," pp. 139-42; park&, "Labour and Timber," chapter 3 eighteen; Pacific coast Labour Bureau, Interior ~ o o d w o r k b g and Logging

Industry Swey, July-October 1945, TURB, box 15, file 3. /fN

42. Parkin, ;Labour bnd Timber," chapter eighteen, p. 6. O

i D .I .

43. ~ r o c e h i n ~ s of the ~ i n t h . Annual Convention of the IWA (~nternational), supplement 9.

' 44, Minutes of District Executive meeting, 4 April 1945, Ritchmapers; box 4, 4. - . Y

chapter Bve Continued . . " 1

45. Proceedings of the Nine Annual Convention of the IWA (International), p. 185. U

46. Ibid., pp. 185-86.

47. kh3, . hkrior $$odworking and Logging Industq Survey. a

48. -Proceedin th Annual Convefition of the IWA (International), Report of' " * Credenti , supplebent 18. District Five had 11,901 to District One's

. 10,599. V

t 49. Lembckean >% >

v

' . 50. R$d, chapter fo~u, 0 I

* *n

5 1.. Ibid.; L, chapter four.. 8

&linutgs of S p W district Council meeting, 20 May 1945, Pritchett Papers, box 4, Ne 21. Q , ,?

Minutes of Distcjct ~ x e c u t i q % July 1945, Fritchett Papers, &a

ri

.PCLB Interior Wood Survey; minutes of ~istrict 'E meeting, 4.July 1945, s . . ,

of District Execugve peeting, 4 July 1945. 9 A

. I

Hak, "On the Fringes," pp. h - 7 4 . ' ' . " - f a Ibid., pp. 284-301. 9sm, .) .

a * 1 ".a b W'

C ' I

- ?, Ibid, p? 306. ' a -

6 - ' b ' '

bid., p. 284. . ~~ . +' * , . o

Ibi&,pp. 97 &d 99. - ' 8 o I

Minutes of k h c t ~ x k u t i v e meeting, 1 August 1945, Pritchett Pzpers, box 4, file 3,- - I

a

Profeedings of the SS& A q o d Convention of the IWA (International), *

supplement 9.

Proceedings of the en& Annual Convention of the IWA (International), supplement 9f Parkin, "Labour and Timber," chapter eighteen.

U

PCLB, Fterior Woodworking and Logging ~n&t& Survey: C

, /

Minutes of District Executive meeting, 1 ~;&stJd5, box 4, file 5.

Ibid.; minutes of District Executive meeting, 5 Septemkr 1945, Pritchett Papers, *box 4, file 6; B.C. J4,umber Workq, 8 October 1945.

.- - - -

The District Council also fought thmugh the RWLB against appeQs from the operators to have the principle of equal pay for equal work adopted in the interior. * Minutes of Quartefly Dismct Council me-ebg, 7 October 1945, Pritchett Paws , box 4, file 25.

CJ. sirhpson, National Labour Bureau, to Claude Ballard, 26 June 1945, T U ~ ~ B , I bdx 15, file 3. I

Minutes of Quarterly District Council meeting, 7 October 1945, box 4, file 25. .\ Minutes of Interior Wage and Policy Conference, 23-24 September 1945, ~ritcdett Papers, box 4, file 5.

Minutes of Quarterly District Council meeting, 7 Oct.dxr 1945.

Minutes of Dismct Executive meeting, 28 November 1945, Pritchett Papers, box 4, file 6.

a

Minutes of District Executive meetings, 7 and 28 November 1 945, Pritchett Papers, box 4, file 6.

B . C . , 8 umberd 22 October 1945. d

"Sloan Report," p. 432; FIR ~ m k f presented at conciliation hearing, 8 August 1949, Pritchett Papers, box 7, file P.

FIR Brief, 8 August 1949.

olumha L W D , February 1943. 45 percent of coastal production was to be reserved for the UK and dominions, 43 percent for Canada, and 12 percent was allocated to the U.S.

See Gray, "Forest Policy and Adrmnistration in British Columbia," chapter four. . .

tlsh Columbia Idumberman, June 1943; "The Timber Control, 1940-1946," RG 64, vol. 90, File November 1946, pp. 9-10.

Ibid, p. 11. In 1942 the movement of the less profitable hemlock logs to U.S. pulp r@ls was restricted, sending export figures plummeting for the next four years (see B.C. Forest Branch reports for 1942-45).

. . FeFebruary 1943.

0- August 1943. . ,

"Report of the Fomt Branch (1943)," B.C.: Sessio- 1944, pp. BB 20 and BB 2 1 ; British Cblu- Apnl1944.

x

la J- April 1944. ., *

Minutes of iw meeting of BCLA Directurs, 24 March 1944, COFI. . . Bntlsh May 1944.

IWA B.C. District Council #l , "Statement in Support of Wage Increase; 1946 Industry Wide Negotiations," 22 May 1946, prepared by TURB, Add. Mss. 1057, box 1, file 7.

Norman Lee testimony to Sloan Commission, cited in &I- March 1945.

. . nhsh Columbia Lurnkrrnm March 1945. I

Testimony of Albert Foster at 1946 Sloan IWA ~rbimtion, Add Mss. 1057, box 1, file 5, pp. 174-75.

Norman Lee testimony m.Sloan Commission; m h . . Gal- May 1944 and June 1944; Deutsch, u., "Econo&x of RMary Production," vol. 1, pp. 59-61 and 46; McKaC Empire of Wod, p. 152; Foster testimony to Sloan Arbitration, p. 174.

Smelts to A. MacNamara, 29 March 1945, RG 3614, vol. 36, file 7100-7199. Quote is Smelts paraphrking information fiqm his regional representative.

Unrevised m s a i p t of meeting with officials of IWA re Shortage of ~abour in Logging Industry in B.C., 27 March 1945, RG 3614, vol. 36, file 710-7199.

&

. . nmh Columbia Lumbemm, April 1944; minutes of meedng of BCLA -, 14 Apnl 1944, COFI.

4

lumbia L u m h June 1944. t P

bid.; minutes of B U general meeting, COFI.

Minutes of BCLA general meeting, 30 May 1944, COFI.

Minutes of meeting of B C U Directors, 20 June 1944, COFI.

108. ~ a f B C L A g . c n e r a l ~ 19Scptember1944,00FI. I t i s o f h e r e a m note that considgmbte opposition was raised within the BCLA by MacMillan's representative, Van Duscn, over the corttents and wording of the brief. In @wlar th$ company opposed &sing the issues of taxation and capital gains with the dominion govermnent. The company's chartered accountant, Price Waterhouse and Co., w d that the issue was a "two-way stmet" and raking it might d k a finther a#entim of the taxation authorities to sueh capital gains in a way that would ultimately prwe detriment.. Siaiifdy, the pulp and paper association brief had omiued mention of capital gains. ,On those grounds Van Dusen. moved to' have adoption of the brief postponed for further study liut he was defeated (minutes of special general meeting of BCLA, 8 November 1944, COFI.

Annual Report of BCLA Directors, 1945, presented to 1 5 January 1946 - .. meeting, COFI.

Stuart testimony at W A Sloan Arbitration, 29 May 1946, pp. 8-10; b ~

\ i.

Ibid., p. 9.

Ibid., pp.'70 and 77. But the union argued that the long-tem tendency was for production to increase.

Unrevised mscr ip t of meeting with offioials of IWA re shortage af Labour in Logging Industry, 27 March 1945, RG 3614, vol. 36, fde 7 lW?lW.

See testimony of R o h Filberg, J.R. Mills and Albert Foster at 1946 Sloan IWA Arbitration, Add. Mss. 1057, box 1, file 5, pp. 23-29 (29 May) and pp.,187-89 - (28 May).

I n t e ~ e w with J2M. Billings, 29 September 1987. -7.

Bid.

Minutes of meeting of District ~kecutive, 2 May 1945, Pritchett Papers, box 4, file 4.

Annual Report of BCLA Directors, 1944, presented to 15 January 1945 meeting, COFI, box 39.

%id. Q

Morgan wrote International President Lowery for 'financial assistance in negotiations indicating that since the key demands had to ix authorized by the war labour boards, "unless we do a thorough jab we will not get far," (Morgan to Lowery, 5 October 1944, IWA Records, roll # 1, file - District Contract Research 1943-46.)

Survey #1 - Vacadons with P&, 1944, 1 1 October 1944, &, box 12, file 3.

Marcuse to Morgan, 9 January 1945, IWA Records, roll 31, file - District Contract -Researchl943-46. ?hisprocedurewasbasedonaprecedentsetbytheNWLBin

Chapter Five bminued

the case of k v e r Brothers Ltd. and Intrmstional Chemical w&, Gal 23623 (AFL), approved 18,lkcank 1944.

t

123. Ibid Blowing his own h o ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ h a t , Marcuse opined &it, "~ack, objective -

. , &nti f ical ly-W realities, are the best weapohs-of the worker and they rgwt learn ' to use these weapons, In the post-war world particularly organized labour will find &at its claims for a shorter work week and other economic and social advances, will have to be sGientifically validated." " . .

i24. IWA District Cduncil #l, Industry Wide ~e~oti~at ions Data re 44 hour week, 19 January 1945; TURB, box 44, file f 1. -

125. ~ g e e d i n ~ s of District Negotiations ~onference, 24 September 1944, TURB, box - 12, file 13. I

126. Proceedings of the Eighth Annual Convention, IWA District Council No. 1,6 and . 7 January 1945.

- 127. m u t e s of meeting of District Executive, 24 January 1945, Pritchett Papers, box 4, ' file 3.

128. ~bid;'minutes of meeting of Disaict Executive, 7 February 1945, Pritchett ~ a b r s , S>ox 4, file 3.

129, ' Minutes of meeting of District Executive, 7 February 1945, box 4, file 3.

130. Min'utes of, quarterly District Counqil meeting, 4 March 1945, Pritchett Papers, box ' 4, file 24. la

ii -0

133- -3- to Claude B&ard, International President, 9 March i945, fWA - Rec-, roll XI, file - District Contract - ResemhY3-46.

132. Minutes of meeting of quarterly Distrist Council heeting 4 March 1945, Pritchett Papers, box 4, file 24. . .

1 39. Minutes of meeting of Dimict ~xecit ive meeting, 4 April 1945, Pritchen Papers, box 4, file 4.

134. 'Minutes of District Executiye meeting, 2 ~a~ 1945, box 4, file 4. * a

135. British ~ o l d b i a , Depamntnt of Trade and Industry, Bureau of Economics and - Statistics, Forest M e s of 3 .C Part a, Seetion 1, "Statisdcal Record of tite togging Industry and Summary of the Forest Industries in British €olumbia," . August 1954, Table II, Principal .Statistics of W d s Operations in British CoTuebia; p. 33, and "Statistical Record of the Lumber Industry in British o

Coiumbia," February 1955, Table PI, Principal Statistics of &e Lumber Industry in British Columbia, p. 13 and 15; proceedings of W A 1946 Sloan Arbitration, 29 May 1946, p. 9, Add. Mss. 1057, box 1, file 5.

136. Interview Srith Emil Bjamason, 6 October 1987; Bilbgs interview.

Chapter Fin Con&ucd OL s *

137. NWLB, R&sms for Decision re F=$t Products Industries.. Coast Region British Cohnhbia and W A District e. cil No. 1, 12 July 1945, &G 36f4, vol. 126, fife 452. It is of interest to note at of 4756 employees -of 9 major lumber firms (CFP, m, BSW, MI, Canadian W t e Pine, MacM3la.n Industries Plywood Division,

/ Alberni Plywoods, Victoria Lumbm, and ITM) fully 33 percent were five year .

employees, 44 percent were one year employees and 27 percent not eligible for vacation in 1945.

e

138. Ibid. .i

.# ., $3

B

139. Praceedings of Negotiations Conferen&; IWA ?strict ~d;ncil#I, Nansmo,. 24 '

Skptemkr 1944,TURB,box'12,file 13. 3

140. FfWLI3, Rookdings of public hearing re joint application o fS~la r t Research F

Service and IWA District Council No. 1, 10 July 1945, RG 3614, vo1.- 126, file 452, p. -13. 5

.s i

' 14 1. Master Agreement - 1945, IU[A District Council NO." 1 and Smm ~ ~ s e k h Service Ltd. %

142. See Warrian, "Labour is not a omm mod it^,"^^. 236-43 for full discussion bf this . issue.

143. Stanton, H- p. 198; Howard White, to Beat: ~f Rill -ur -d (Vancouver: Pulp Press Book Publishers, 1983), p. 17 1 ; interview; Archie Greenwell interview

- with Allen Seager, 7 July 1976.

144. Minutes of Right of Refere,nce Committee meedng,.2 June 1945, IWA Records, roll #43, file - 1958 Correspondence - Forest I n d u W Relations.

145. Stanton, Never Sav nieL p. 198.

146. Master Agreement - 1945, Article IX sec. 2a. a

' k 147. Minutes of Right of eference &mmittee meeting, 20 August 1945, IWA Records, mll#43, file - 1958 Conespondence - Forest I~idustrial~Relations. -

148. Minutes of Right of Reference Cornminee meeting, 2 June 1945, ~A Records, rob #43, file - 1958 Correspondence - Forest Industrial Relations.

149. NWLB, Proceedings ofpublic hearing, 10 July 1945, RG 36/4, vol. 126, file 452, pp. 5-6, and pp. 15-176,

150. ,&utes of Right of Reference Committee meeting, 20 August 1945, IWA*Records, rull#43, file - 1958 Correspondence - Forest Industrial Relations.

F

15 1. "Employees on the m n d and third shift shall be paid & additional five-cents (5$) . p e r h i z night shift differentid"

152. Minutes of negotiating meeting between IWA and Stuart ~esearch, 5 May 1947, .

TURB, box 13, N e 34.

46: Negotlatlons . .

Z-

e

Larry Pqtefson, "Revolutionary Sbcialism and Industrial Unrest * the Era of the ,

Winnipeg General Strike," pp. 1 15-31; interview with Les McDonald, 10 April I

\ 1987, . \ ,

Starobin, CO-, pp. i45-46. / 1

Lichenstein, w r ' s War'at m, pp. 207- 12. - . . . . ' " , pp.'145-46. Starobin, A*merican Co- _./

Martin J. Sherwin, ,4 Wo&j Destroved: Atomic B- (New York: Random House, 1977), pp. 220-22.

R.D. Cuff and J.L. Granatqtein, American Dollars - Canadian P r o m R 1945- 1958 (Toronts: Samuel Stevens

and Co., 1978), p. 192. ? - " . .

P e ~ e r , Canadian Co- pp. 219-20. - ?

Cuff and Granatstein, American D o h pp. 192-93.

Pemer,-p.221. -

Starobb, b a i c a n in C r w . . venstein, co- and the. CIO, pp. 6-9.

+

Stambin, h e r i - Co- in C m . . ,pp. 122-25.

i . 9, Tim Buck, "Atomic Di~lomacv - reat to World P w (Toronto: Labour. , . ,

Progressive Party, 1945), .

Draft text of main resolution on policy from 1946 LPP Convention, Pacific Tribune. 26 April 1946.

G.S. Pearson to M.M. MacLean, 23 May 1945 and Pritchett to MacLean, 15 &tuber 1945, RG 27, vd. 1764, file 55-15.

G

The CCL stalled in pviding funcis fm the effort as dld the W A International. Minutes of District Executive meetings, 7 and 28 November 1945, Pritchett Pws, box 4, file 6; minutes of District Executive meeting, 19 February 1946, drmkft -

Papen, box 4, file 8. -.

F. Harrison to M.M. MacLean, 23 December 1945, RG 27, vol. 1770, file 755.82.

-. - . ~ 5 . ~

. '. - ~ p ~

. . -

-479-. . 0 Y

Chapter Six Commd

18. ~ ~ i n & o f ~ ~ ~ e c u t i ~ m e e t i f l ~ , 2 8 ~ ~ ~ 9 4 5 , ~ & W p r n , b m r 4 , file 6; minutes of District Executive meeting, 19 March 1946, Pritche~ Papers, box 4; file 9; Keystone Shingles and Lumber Co. Ltd., New Westminster, and W A ' h a l 1-357, RG 27, voL 177 1, file 755.82.

Proceedings of the Ninth AnnualConvention of IWA District Council No. 1, Vancouver, 4-6 January 1946, Resolution #46, TURB, box 73, file lob.

0, August 1945, December 1945, F@ruary 1946, March 1946.

Roctcdings of the Ninth Annual ~onvenio* of WA District Council No. 1, supplement No. 4, Wages and Contract Committee Report, WRB, box 12, file 22c. 5.

Proceedings of the Ninth Annual Convention of W A District Council No. 1, pp. - 91-93; David Moulton, "Ford Windsor 1945," in Irving Abella, ed., On S '* : S& &V 1- s es in C& 191 9- 1949 (Toronto: ' Jamcs Lorhey& Co., 1975), p e

- 23. Minutes of District Executive meeting, 28 November 1945, Pritchett Papers, box 4, file 6.

24. Minutes of District Executive meeting, 3 January 1946, Pritchett Papers, box 4, fde 7 .I . ,

25. Minutes of District Executive meeting, 4 February 1946, Pritchett Papers; bo% 4, file 7.

26. Lichtenstein, Labor's War at Home pp.0221-232. F'

27. B.C. Jdrnher Workg 8 July 1946. '

28. Minutes of District Executive meeting, 4 Feumary 1946, Wtchett Papers, box 4, ' file 7.

29. Roben H. Storey, "W ken, Unions and Steel: The Shaping of the'Harnilton Working Class, 1935-1 "64 8," (Ph.D. thesis, University of Toronto, 1981), p. 415,

- note #213, from ~ e m o b d u m of Wage Policy' Meeting held in Toronto, 24 January 1946, in UE Archives.

-

30 -Wfic T r i b w 15 February 1946. a.

* 3 1. . . nlonrst. March 1946; f ackson cited in Moulton, "Ford Windsor 1945,"

n.

34. . .

a&an Unlornst, June 1946. J

Chapter Six c fmt ind

35; Minutes of g u d y ~ i & t - ~ouncil meeting, 24 April 1946, Pritct_KEB paF: box = 4,BeZ: - , . --

- * w

36. %;u $District % meetbg, 19 k h 1946, ktchstt bdi 4, fde 4

\

37. Minubis of District Executive meeting, 19 February 1946, PritchefiPapers, box 4, file 8.

38.' Minutes of District- Executive meeting, 5 March 1946, Pritchett Papers, box 4, fde 8. *

0 - 39. Minutes of quarterly District & n C i f r n c e t i n g , 4 ~ ~ , Pritchen P&, box

4, file 25.

40. Minutes of District Executive meeting, 5 March 1946, Pritchett Papers, box 4, file 8.

4 1. Interior of B.C. Survey, 1945, TURB, box 13, file 33; Interior Woodworking and Logging Industry Survey for B.C. District Council #1, July-October 1945, TURB, box 15, file 3. Minutes of Interior Wage and Policy Conference, 23-24 September 1945, Pritchett Papers, box 4, file 5.

1

42. British Columbia, Department of Trade and Industry, Bureau of Economics and Statistic;, n e s of B.C, Part II, Section I, "Statistical Record of the Lumber Industry in British Columbia," February 1955, Table V, Principal Statistics of the Lumber Industry in British Columbia, Coast and Interior Operations, 1944 to 1952, p. 17.

Minutes of uarterly District Council meeting, 14 April 1946; Report on Organizers' nference, 13 April 1946, supplement #, Pritchett Papers, box 4, file 25.

20

Minutes of quarterly District Council meeting, 14 April 1946, Pritchett 6, box 4, file 25. ~ i s & c t Secretary Melsness' version of the 1945 interior negotiations - 3

held that originaUy the tentative agreement reached fbr Prince Gearge was supposed to have been applied to the south until. negotiator Ruddock met with CMA representatives who, under advice from Walter Owen, decided differently. Minutes of Interior Negotiating Conference, 12 March 1946, Pritchett Papers, box 5, file 6. The southern association @MA) k a m e a subsidiary of CMA in 1941, the northern in 1944. Bnnsh Columbia Lumberman. . * August 1947.-

Minutes of Interim Negotiating Conference, 12 March 1946, ~ritchett Papers, box 5, me 6.

+

nsh f a l u - m February 1946.

48. Records of Forest Industrial Relations Ltd., Circulars to member companies y (hefeaEter FIR C i r a h Files), #113,26 Febntary 1946.

P <-

h r k h , "Labour and ~ m b e r b chapter 18, in B- Worker, 29 March a), 1947; LRmbcke a d Tathun, One m Wood, . .

pp. 1 15- 16.- Lembcke qpas to get the chrmobgy wrong, seeing th6 election outcome in part as a resdt of the +

'"sacceSsfuI" 1946 District One strike. Karly Larsen from Nmern Washington - replaced Claude Ballard as First Vice-president. E.E. Benedict lo@ his seeremy- treasure position to, Ed L a p of Uregon. District One's Jack Greenall replaced , George MtcheB as Tntstee. v

Minutes of District Executive meeting, 19 March 1946, Pritchett Papers, box 4, file '

9; Proceedings of tke TenthAmual Convention of the DNA (International), Portland, 10- 13 Septenhber 1946, pp. 166-74,304. .

i t

International Woodworkers of dunerica, B.C- Disoict, Submission to Stuart Research. Ltd. re 19% Industry-wide Negotiations, 26 March 1946, hiversity of British Columbia Litriary;* c Tnb , 26 September 1946 for WP draft programme, 15 February , 1 9 4 7 6 Nigel ~ F ~ a n statement on LPP policy.

Reply to Memo submisted by IWA District Council #1 relative to Lumber h d u s q (1 946) Wage and Hour proposi?ls, 8 April 1946, Add. Ms. 1057, box 1, file 7.

44 Minute3 of quarterly District Council meeting, 14 April 1946.

Ibid. _ . . .

3dy 1946, anicle by CB. Scott m Wage and Salary Control. *

Under the same order, jurisdiction over vacations wite pay and hours of wmk was , handitd back to the provincescesas of 1 July 1946.

FIR Circular Files, #120, 16 Apnl 19216. This act was the result of a conce~ted , labour lobby earlier in the year. See Paul Knox, '"The Passage of Bill 39: Reform and Repression in British Colirmbia's Labour Policy:' @LA. thesis, University of British Q l d i a , 1974), pp. 77-84.

Find Negotiation Bulletin, 7 May 1946, Pritchett Papers, box 4, fde 6; FIR Circular Files, #120,15 April 1946, #121,25 A@ 1946, #lZ, 29 A p d 1946. -

Vancouver h, 6 May 1946. ' .

F d Negotiation Bulletin, 7 May 1946. d

y 1946 ( i n d y dated 29 A@ 1946). Tfte k o n g

3 0 Apnl1946; Vancouver SU, 2 May and 6 May 1946.

Find Negotiation Bulletin, 7 May 1946; FIR Circular File, #123, 6 May 1946; k W d q , 6 May 1946.

3 May 1%. * L

%

10 May 1946.

Mi.m'tes of District Execfithe meeting, 7 ~ a i 1 9 4 6 , Piitchett Papers-box 4, file 10; P.C. W&, 29 April 1946. +

r '

Vmmver Sun, B ' M ~ ~ 1946.

Vancouver b, 10 Majl1946. . .

. . Stuart ~amieson, of T w l e : m u r ~ e s t ' a n d u s r $ d Co-

66, Task Force on Latsour Relations under the Privy Council Office, Ouawa, October 1968, pp. 297-302; minutes of quarterly District

Council~rneehg, 16 Apnf 1 W, Vancower Sun, 10 May and 1 1 May 1946.

Vancouver 10 May and 11 May 1946; "The 1946 Strike in the Lumber Industry of British d 3 o l ~ i a , " FIR Circular File No. 1.

Minutes of V c t Strike Commie , 13 May 1946, Pritchett Papers, box 5, file 3; 17 May, 31 '&y and 7 June 1946. Disputes still-existed at

Bralorne, Copper Mountain and Pioneer in British Columbia, affecting approximately 2500 mine mill workers.

Vancouver 14' ~a~ 1946. The itatement was endorsed by locals of the Plumbers and Steamfrtrers Hotel and Restaurant Employees, CSU, United Fish-, Painters Union, ? met Wwaymen, CEupenters,'Shing3e Weavers-all AFL &iates; and by CCL unions--Amalgamated Building Workers; ILWU, Operating Engineers, United Oil Workers, .Marine Workers and Boilermakers, Mine Mill, Blacksmiths, Steelworkers, and the B.C. Federation of Labour; as well as by the CMC Employees, Mstchirrists, and Maine Engineers.

Vancouver &Q, 13 May 1946.

Minutes of District Strike Cornminee, 13 May 1946, Ritchen Papers, box 5, file 3; Vancower 13 May 1946.

&

Vancower bl 14 May 1946.

Vaacouver & 15 May 1946; News Release, Federal Department of Labur, 10 May 3946, RG 27, ~04,445, strike 78.

P&, "Labour and Timber,'," Conclusion, in B.C. J,urnber Worker, 2 ~ & e 1947; FIR Circular File, #133,15 May 1946.

I

-V&couver hovince, 16 May 1946; Vancouver 18 MBy 1946; minutes of District Executive meeting, 27 May 1946, I?$tche s, box 5, file 3s, ?' - I w*-

Vancouver a 17 and 18 May 1946. . .

Van~ouver a 25 May 19M, List of Companies in British Colurnbiareportd to be kvolved in the strike of loggers and w~workers,.commencing May 15,1946, RG 27, vol. 445, strike 79.

-

FE. Harrison tg M.M. MacLean, 5 June 1946, RG 27, vql. 445, strike 79. - Minutes of meeting of District Strike. Committee, 27 May 194 , &&hen &pers, box 5, fge 3; Varfcouver a, 27 May 1946. P - Newspaper clippings, RG 27, vol. 445, strike 79. B .

Bid.

F a Vancouver &' 17 May 1946. +,

B.C. Lumber W e , 28 May 1946. B

Earkin, "Labour and ~imber," Concludon.

Vancouver &vinc_e. 16 May 1946.

Resolution sent to Humphrgy fitcW, 23 May 1946, RG 27, vol. 3526, file 3-26- 10-5, part 1. 9

R.C. &an 16 R,D. Young, Silver-Skagit Lagging Co., -21 May 1946, Ritchea Papers, box 8, f3e 2; FIR Circular Files, #135, rs May 1946. ..

. -

Radio broadcast scripts, 'The Voice of the B.C. Lumber Industry,." 28 and 29 May 1946, RG 27, vol. 3526, file 3-26-10-5<part 1.

Vancower prOvin= 16 May 1946. - -

t r

Vmcuuver m, 16 May 1946.

Vaqhuver fiovinc~g, 18 May 1946; minutes of the District ~ & e Comqinee meetings.20 and'27 May 1946, Pritchett Papers, box 5, file 3.

Minutes of District Sh-ike Committee meeting, 27 May 1946.

2 - . .

. . - . 484- . % . - .. .

3 : *

, , Chapter Seven Continued ; . , ." - : - r *

2 .it , . .I

~k ion demands follwred along thc s-'l&s as the IWA's, thug6 t8c strike: dr&gge;d og long past the woodworkers' settlement. The Mine Mill strike, also brauSa illegd by the cmploym, was complicated by split jmisdiction in the metal shop where bsth the USW and the International Moulders and Foundq Workers also held ceptifications. Mine Mill, an industrial union, in fact represented only the - pattern worker& SF Knox, 'The Passage of Bill 39," pp. 98-101; Vancouver S,rarz, 17 May 1946. tE

i F +

Victoria Times. 20 May ,1944, in RG 27; vol. 445, file 79.' .. - - - . - - . s-= '27 %

Dominion Department of ~ a b & News Release, 18'May 1946, strike 79; Vanduver &, 18 May 1946. + a

* - , + "s.

23. Dominion ~epartment of Labour News ele ease, 21 May 1946, RG-27, vol. 44, . strike 79. -Disruptions included impending shortages of newsprint, sawdust and *

. lumber, containers for apples and other f r u i t , f h l s f o r perishable g o d s and a sudden surplus of milk and other perishable supplies normally sent to l u m k camps. Vampwer: pmvince, 23 way 1946; M.L., Syeeney of Sweeney Coopage

2- to John Wainscott, secretary local 1-1 18 Victoaa w, 27 May 1946, RG 27, @ vol. 445, strike 79.

6

-- 24. Memo presented to Hon. 'Humphrey Mitchell, Minister of Labour, by the Wage

Coordinating Committee, Canadian Congress of Labour, 2 1 May 1946, reprinted in . . m w June 1946.

25. ' IiIR Circular Files, #139, 20 -May 1946; Dominion Department of Labour News - Release, 21 May 1946, RG 27, vd. 4f5, strike 79; Vancouver 21 May and 22Mayl!f"6. - I

Vbcouver Sun, 22 May 1946; J3.C. Lumber Worker, 28 May 1946. The night before, at a Vancouver Trades and Labour Council meeting, after loudly applauding speeches by Pritchea Ddskog and Melsness, delegates endorsed the IWA demands which were aiding fishermen negotiations.

Minutes of District Shike Committee meeting, 27 May 1946, Rltchen Papers, box 5, file 3. 1% . Ibid. Sloan's claim appears to besubstantiated by t$e fact that at two separate meetings of Stuads clientele, on 13 May and 3 June, the saine resolution was carried that no client would directly or indirectly discuss or agree with the union. All approaches to the union were to be referred to Stuart. See FIR Circular Files; -. #149,3 June 1946. , %

. ?

FIR Circular Files, #141, May 1946, gnutes of District Strike Committee . meeting, 27 May 1946, Pritchett Papers, box 5, file 3; press release issued by .

Gordon Sloan, 5- June 1946, Add. Mss. 1057, box 1, file 4. 4

30. FIR Circular Files, #I4 1,25 May 1946. . ' . - .

3 1 . Minutes of Disb.ict Executive meeting, 3 June 1946, Prifchett Papers, box 4, file ,

10.

-485- 19

Chapter Seven Confinued J B.C.-rorker, 28 May 1946.

e .

Minutes of District Strike Committee peeting, 27 May 1946, P r i t che~Paw, box 5, fde 3.

+ -

Ibid.

F.C. Jdumb& Worker, 28 May 1946. 8'

Vancobver b, 27 May 1946. * .

Knox, 'The Passage of Bill 39," pp. 80-82. a

Vancouver Province. 28 May 1946.

Hugh Dalton to Pearson, 30 May 1946, GR 1222, vol. 61, file 1.

KA. Renwick, Chairman, British Columbia Division, CMA, to John Hart, 28 May, ..

1946, GR 1222, vol. 61, file 1; Vancouver Province, 30 May 1946.

Vancouver Province. 30 May 1946. a

Vancouver Provinc~ 3 1 May 1946.

Proceedings of W A Arbitration, 27-28 May 1946, Add. Mss. 1057, box 1, files 5 and 6, pp. 23-78.

-\ 0

09

Ibid, pp. 47-80. i f

% ,I i

W A , B.C. District Counc~,Xl, Statement in Support of wage hicrease, 1946 '

Industry Wide egot ti at id, 22 May 1946 (marked Exhibit #I), Add. Mss. 1057, . box 1, Ne 7, pp. 22-26. n

Proceedings pf IWA Arbitriaion, 29 May 1946, Add. Mss. 1057, box 1, file 5,&pp. ' 8-9. 1

>

Roceedings ofIWA Arbi 28 May 1946, Add. Mss. 1057, box 1, file 5, pp. 164-94; proceedings of 29 May 1946, Add. Mss. 1057, box 1, file 5, p. 11. - 8

These were J.H. ~ l o e d e l , ' ~ . ~ . Filberg', Aird Flavelle, and James Russel (forestry engineer). Proceedings of IWA Arbitration, 29 May 1946, pp. 1-44.

bid., pp. 12-14. 'I !

Proceedings of IWA Arbitration, 30 May 1946, Add. Mss. 1057, box 1, file 5, pp. 59 and 94-5.

Concomitant 9 t h compulsory whether union or not, to participate in a question of a strike. In exchange for police its rnembenhp with respect to illegal. strikes, and temporarily forfeit dues in

-486- 4%

Chapter Seven Continued

the event of an illegal s e e . The union dso became subject to a revie$: of its certification on application of>only 25 percent of its membership. Canadian Unionist, February 1944.

Ress release issued by or don loan, 5 June 1946, Add Mss. 1057, box 1, file + Sloan to Pritche-tt, 1 June 1946, cited in minutes of special District Council meeting, 5 Jme 1946, Pritchett Papefs, box 4, fde 22.

n

Vancouver ~ovinc; 1 June 1 9 4 6 '

Minutes of special District Council meeting, 5 June 1946, Fritchea Papers, box 4, file 22.

Minutes of District Executive meeting, 3 June 1946, Pritchett Papers, box 4, file 10.

bid; Vancouver prOvincc, 4 June 1946.

Minutes of District Executive meeting, 3 June 1946; Vancouver grOvina, 28 May 1946.

Minutes of District Executive meetin'g, 3 June 1946. I, r

.z- .-BP Minutes of special Distiict Co&cil meeting, 5 June 1946; minutes of District Executive meeting, 3 Jdne 1946; report of staff correspondent Leslie Fox, Vancouver Slhn, 7 June 1946, minutes of quarterly District Council meeting, 7 October 1945, Pritchett Papers, box 4, fde 25.

Vancouver Povince, 1 June 1946; Parkin, "Labour and Timber,"* "Conclusion," B.C. Iamber Worker, 2 June 1947.

Vancouver m, 4 June J946.

FIR Circular Files, #149, 3 June 1946, and #150,4 June 1946. - I

B.C. Lumber Work=, 8 June 1946.

Vancouver &Q, 4 June 1946.

"4 I

Press release issued by Gordon Sloan, 5 June 1,

V ~ ~ C U U V W 6 JUX 1%. i i

I 4 - J.R.J. Stirling, Piesideak- B.C, Fruit Growers' Associat~on, to Humphrey- - .

Mitchell, 6 June 1946, RG 27, vol. 3526; file 3-26-10-5, part 1. .

Vancouver Sun, 7, 10 and 1 1 June 1946.

, Chapter Seven Continued 2'

0 r

72. Chairmao, Pulp and Paper Association of Canada, Western Branch, to Mitchell, 6 June 1946, RG 27, vol. 3526, file 3-26-10-5, part 1.

73. Fred-Elwonhy to Deputy Minister of Labour, 8 June 1946, RG 27, vol. 3526, fde 3-26 10-5, part 1.

74. Vancqwer &Q (?&tqial), 6 June 1946.

75. Ress release by RV. StBart, 5 June 1946, and radio broadcast script, 6 June 1946, RG 27, vol. 3526, Ne 3-26- 10-5, part 1.

76. , FIR Circular Files, #l56,- 1 3 June 1946.

* 77. Vancouver & 6 June 1946.. - - - e

78. Minutes of spcciaf Disnict Council meeting, 16 June 1946, Ritchen Papers, box 4, file 23.

79. Pearson to A. MacNamara, Dominion Deputy Minister of Labour, 7 June 1946, enclosing copies of telegrams received as samples; also see numerous telegrams sent to Ottawa following the W A rejection of Sloan's award, RG 27, voi. 3526, file 3-26-10-5, part 1. ,

80. B a b e r Work= 8 June 1946. Although the Mine Mill Foundry workers in Vancouver, and brass workers in Toronto, as well as the CSU-on the Cfreat Lakes

, , and printen in four cities were on strike simultaneou'sly with the lWA, the main strike "wave" of the large industrial unions in c e n w Canada did not materialize

a.

B , B until July through September. See Krrox, "The Passage of Bill 39," p. 91, figure 5-2; Jamieson, Times of Trouble p. 298,

P

8.1. Minutes of special District Council meeting, 16 June 1946, hitchen Papm, box 4, file 23.

82. Vancouver &Q, 7 June 194-6.

AE. Rintoul, Assistant Regional Director (Rehabilitation) to F.W. ~melts,'6 June 1946, RG 27, vol. 3526, file 3-26 10-5, part 1.

Ellen b g l u x k , South Bumaby, B.C., to Stewart Alsbury, 1 1 June 1952, IWA Records, roll 10, file - J. Stewan Alsbury, President, General. On 3 1 May 1946, the union Fighting Fund had a balance of $43,678. Strike relief d i s b u m m e ~ ~ for May were reported for only two locals and totalled $1870. Most of the fund was being urilized for navel, publicity, the union hiring hall and for organizational purposes. Minutes of special @strict Council meeting, 5 June 1946, Pritchett Papers, box 4, file 22.

Z

Minutes of special Ihain Council rneering, 16 June 1946, Pritchett Papers, box 4, file 23. l

Vancower & 1 1 and 12 June 1946.

-488-

Ghapter Seven Continued

Minutes oPr special District Council meeting, 16 June 1946, Pritchett P a p , box 4, H e 23.

0 -

Vandouver a 13 June 1946; FIR Circular Files, #153,12 June-1946.

Stuart'to Sloan, 13 June 1946, Add, Mss. 1057, box 1, file 4; Vancouver & 13 June 1946.

Vancouver 10 and 1 1 June 1946.

Hugh Dalton, Manager, British Columbia Division, CMA, to 3.L. Isley, Acting Prime Minister, 12 June 1946,' RG 27, vol. 3526, N e 3-26 10-5, part 1.

Melsness to Isley, 13 June 1946, RG 27, vol. 3526, file 3-26-1 0-5, part 1.

Vancouver Slan, 12 a t d 13 June 1946.

Minutes of special Dimin Council meeting, 16 June 1946, Pritchen Papers, box 4, file 23. - - --

Vancouver &, 12 June 194.6.

ber W e , 22 June 1946; 1, June 1946. f Mass meetings were apparently held in Nanaimo, Duncan, and Ladysmith on the eve of the trek with a dance following at Ladysmith.

P

W A local 1-80, Duncan, British Culumbia, report on "The Trek," 17 June 1946, Pritchett Papers, box 8, file 12.

Vancouver b, 15' ~ u n e 1946.

F I R X h a h FiIe~#158, 14 June 1946. The Fishermen's offer of ba t s to transport mainland trekkers did not materialize. There is no indication if this change in plans was either cause or effect of the low turnout from Vancouver.

Vancouver &Q, 15 June 1946:

Minutes of s w a i D i s m d Council naeeting, 16 June 1946, Pritchen Papers, box 4, file 23. The TWA International had no strike fund per se at this point. A system apparently existed in th*eory whereby miking districts or locals could solicit funds among other i d s . See Proceedings of Tenth Annual Convention of the IWA (International), p. 304.

Minutes of.specid District Council meeting, 16 June 1946, Pritchen Papers, box 4, file 23.

Minutes of s p a l h s u i c t Council meeting, 17 June 1946, Pritchett Papers, box 4, file 23.

I ,.

Qibid ~v id ince to. & effect is contained in a subsequent motion which provided that where opaarors had already signed the 1946 agreement, the union would

consider an adjustment of wages and hours in line wits the finaI settb~st, but would make no alteration of the cIauses dealing withmion shop and ~freck-off..

, -- /

Vmcobver a, 1 8 fu6e 1946,

Labour= July 1946, p. 918, ciipping in RG 27, vol. 445, strike 79.

Minutes of special District Couicil meeting, 19 June 1946, Pritchett Papers, box 4, Ne 23; 3.C- L u m k Worker, 27 June 1946.

Radio broadcast scripts, Stuart Research Service, 20. 2l-ancL23.5 June 1946, RG 27, vol. 3526, Be 3-26- 10-5, part 1; Vancouver 21 June 19%. Under a true voluntary kevwable check-off, if a worker withdrew from the union, his dues had stiU to be collected by the employer. In the case of the W A waiver clause, Stuarf's broadcast explained, the check-off arrangement was binding only between the employee and the union. - FIR Circular Fie% #I 83, 1 6 August 1946.

Proceedings of the Tenth .4muaf Convention of I W A District Council No. 1,3-4 January 1947, pp. 56-58; minutes of quarterly District Council meeting, 7 July 1946, Pritchett P a p , box 4, file 26.

Minutes of quarterly District Council meeting, 7 July 1946, Ritchen Papers, box 4, f i e 26.

Ibid.

Hugh Dalton, Manager, British Cdumbia Division, CIVIA, to Gordon S k m , 8 July 1946, Add. Mss. 1057, box 1, fde 4.

, C

Dalton to Sloan, 1 1 July 1946, Add. Mss. 1057, box 1, file 4.

Proceedings of the Tenth Annual Convention of IWA District Council No. 1, pp. 59-60.

The main source of the criticism was Pnnce George local 1-424, Ibid., pp. 56-64. -

Logan, Trade Unions in Canada, p. 285.

~ n o x , ' h e Passage of ~ i i i 39,'' p. 105.

Proceedings of the Tenth Annual Convention of IWA District Council No. 1, p. 56.

bid, Officers' Re- supplement #1, p. 2.

Bjarnason interview.

Harold Pritchett, "A Ffadc Analysis of the Victory, the Lessons, the Mistakes, and a Positive Come for ~ h w e Action," P.C. Lumber Worke~ 8 July 1946.

Stanton, Yever Say b e ! , p. 198.

Chapter Seven Continned

124. tembcke and Tatmu, One U n m In Wood . . , p. 114.

125. Pritchett, "A Frank Analysis."

126. Lembcke and Tamm, One Union in Wood, p. 114; Bergrcn, Tough, p. 234; Parkin, 'labour and Timkr," "Conclusion;" Pritchett, "A Frank Analysis."

127. ~ritchett., "A Frauk Analysis."

129. Proceedings of the Tenth Annual Convention of the IWA (International), pp. 169- 7 1.

13 1. Pritchett, "A Frank Analysis."

a.

Notes: Chapter Em ;P

. - - 1 .~&

t a

Howell John Harris, n e t to Awrican Business in the 19%(M&%niv pp. 92-93.

Ed, pp. 94-95.

1946 W A Arbitration Proceedings, 29 May 1946, p. 8, Add. MSS. 1057, box 1, file 5.

The BCLA in August and September 1947 was recruiting men from New Brunswick. In October 1947 a shortage of good skilled men like high riggers and engineers persisted, though the labour situation over all was improving. Minutes of BCLA G e d Meeting, 26 August 1947 and 23 September 1947, COFI.

FIR Brief to Conciliation Board Hearing, 8 August 1949, Pritchett Papers, box 17, filel. .

Survey of Production by Trade Union Research ~ureau, Pritchea Papers, box 6, file 21.

Deutsch, d., "Economics of P@my Production," vol. 1, Table 13, p. 105, 'fhgging: Employment and Output in the Coast and Interior Regions of British

'Columbia, 1945-56." This decline would have been offset somewhat by the increasing market value of lumber, but the trend was nevertheless worrisome to

(4

employers. '

Ibid, Table 14, p. 109, "Sawmilling in British Columbia-Indices of Employment Earnings and Output: 1946-1955." a

bid, Table 12, p. 98, "Trends in Major Cost Corn nents in British Columbia Logging, Expressed in Ratios (in percent) of Total due of Output, 1946 to 1955 inclusive."

vP" Pritchett, Vancouver d c l e &om February 1947 in TURB 13-35.

B.C. J,urnkrman, July 1946 and June 1948. -

Keith Reid and Don Weaver, "Aspects of the Political Economy *;the British -

Columbia Forest Industry," in Paul Knox and Philip Resnick, eds., . . olmcal Fxonomv (Vancouver New Star Books, 19741, pp. 13-24%ter Aylen,

''Sustained Yield Foresw in B.C. to 1956: A Deterministic Analysis of Development,:' (MA. thesis, University of Victoria, 1984).

Gray, "Forest Policy and Administration in British CMmbia." /

. . nosh Columbia J,umbermm January 1948, February 1948.

15. %id., Septemkr 1947, 4: d

. . 16. Bnnsh September 1946, ~e~ternber 1947, June 1948.

17. Eurnberrqa~n, December 1947, August 1948. Filberg was also elected president of the Western. Forestry and Conservation Association, headquarteredhportland. - <\

'Y - 4 18. lumbia -, September 1948. 'A more sophisticated approach to

waste management was advocated by W.D. Hewlett of Heaps encouraged the curtailment of waste, rather than its use incorporating of the small log gang-saw into a company's operation

A@ 1948);

1 9. MacKay, m~ire of W&, pp. 156-57. / 20. , . d, September 1948. ' ,.-/ / -

. . L 21. Hugh Weqtherby, "Wood Waste and Sustained Yield," August 1948.

22. Knox, 'The Passage of Bill 39," chapters five and six. t

23. ustnal August 1946'and Februhry 1947. i

24. b d u m May 1947. I

25. ustnd C& July 1947, p. 212. 4

26. Ibid., pp. 210-11. ,

.27. . .

Bnash Columb~a 1 , d r m a n , March 1948. t

2 8 . Knox claims CMA exclusion was a reward for LPP support, a~ part of a Coalition government campaign to undermine the CCF. LPP-linked unions tended to dominate the BCFL and its lobby (Knox, "The Passage of Bill 39," pp. 63-69).

29. aid, pp. 77-82.

30. Ibi&, p. 82.

31. fbid,p. 120.

32. H.A. Renwick, Chairman, British Columbia Division, CMA, to fohn HZUI re strike situation, 28 May 1946, GR 1222, box 61, file 1.

33. Michael McGeougfi to Pearson, Memo on ICA Ast of British Columbia, 13 Decernk 1946, GR 1222, b x 188, file 2. 3

341\ FIR Circular File, a#, 28 February 1947; Industrial Canada Apnl 1947. i

35. Ibid. \ .

Levenstein, 3hagwism. AnticommYnigaand the CIO, p. 216; Harris, The Q& D p. 175.

38.1'' Harris, The mt to M- p. 125.

Tomlins, The Stan and theni- pp. 300103,3 15-16.

fic T r i h 21 March 1947.

Vancouver &Q, 23 January 1948.

Where PC! 1003 provided for a range of fines &tween $100 and $500, Bill 39's range was between $25 and $225. B.C., 1947, 11 Geo. 6, c. 44, SS. 33- 37; Wartime Labour Relations Regulations (PC 1003), ss. 38-46, cited in Coates, "Ckganized Labour and Politics in Canada," pp. 23656. In addition, BQI 39 went funher than the f&d regulations io providing explicitly for penalties for anempting to sign up members during waking hdurs or participating in any activity designed to b i t production. On the orher band, it provided for daily f&es of up to $125 for each day a pany refused or failed to bargain collectively.

"Analysis of Bill 39," John Stanton memo to G.S. Pearson, Minister of Labour, 10 March 1947, GR 1222, box 188, fi le3 . ,

&ox, "The Passage of~ill39," p. 126.

Stanton to Pearson, 10 Match 1947, GR 1222, box 188, file 3.

Bid. -

FIR Circular Files, #IS, 28 August 1946. -

FIR Circular Files, #188, 3 Septemh p46. * P

Minutes of Dimin Council Quarterly Meeting, 13 October 1946; Wtchett gapers, vol. 4, He 26. -.

i-

Sa

Stuart to Pritchen, 12 OctoSer 1946, quoted -in &uqM@gs 10th Annual Convention IWA District Council One, 3-4 January 1947, p: 123.-

FIR Circular Files, # 193,24 September 1946. . '

Minutes of BCLA General Meeting, 20 August 1946, COFL 1 *

FIR Circular Fils, #193,24 Septernk 1946.

FIR CW& Files, #195,7 October 1946.

FIR Circular Files, #%, 26 October 1946.

Em €5rcBk Fibs; m, f N o y e m k 1946.

FIR Brief pr&ented at Conciliation Board hearing, 7 August 1949, Pritchett Papers, box 7, B e 1.

S. Pederson So Dafskog, 3 1 December 1946, and Dalskog to Pederson, 10 f annary 1947, IWA Records, roll 1, me 1 9 4 7 - G E . Dal&og+M~Ilaneous Letters.

Ed, Pritchetr to Stuart, 28 Ikember 1946, quoted in Psoceegs 10th Annual Convention W A District Council One, 3-4 January 1947, pp. 125-26.

Quoted in A.C. Remedy, Personal Relations D e p h e n t , RR. MacMinan Export Co., to R.V. Stuart, 1 Aprii 1947, Records of Forest Industrid Relations, Old Arbitration Files (hereaftr=r FfR Old Arbitration Files) Arbitration Week - 48 Hours - 1947.

Heffernan to Smart, 11 March 1947, FIR Old Arbitration File, ~rbi trat ion~&k - 48 Hours - 1947,

FIR Circular Files, #211,22 March 1947.

Notes of Right of Reference Meeting, 29 March 1947, FIR Old ~rbitration F&, Arbitration Week - 48 Hours - 1947.

.. Proceedings Wages and Contract Conference, IWA D i s ~ c t Council One, 29-30 March 1947, Pritcktt Papas, box 5, Be 7.

%id., B.C. J d u m b Worket 31 k h 1947.

B.C. Lumber W&q, 3 1 Mach 1947,

Comox Logging and Railway Co. reported all 950 loggers at Ladysmith and- Comox were out. Tfie business agent for 1-85 said 1500 men did not report to work in his area. (Vancouver & 5 April 1947); the B.C. Lumber Worker reported aU camps closed (BCLW, 7 April 1947); Stuart reported some camps working (FIR Circular We, #215,5 April 1947).

Vancouver 1 1 A@ 1947.

Vancouver SUn, 19 A@ f 947. r

Majority Decision of Arbitration Board (Chair H.1. Bird and Arbitrator ARed Bull), FfR C~~ Files #2 17, 7 6 April 1947.

Minority I k k i o n of Arbitration Board (Arbitrator Harvey Murphy), FIR Old Arbitration Files, Arbitfation Week - 48 Hours - 1947.

4 bid. -

B.C. Lumber Work= 2 1 April 1947.

77. FIR Circular Files, #221, I May 1947; Vqcouver Srm, 25 April 1947; a Wm& 5 my f 947.

80. ' EC. f Aurnber Workq, 5 May 1947.

Minutes of 15 May I947 negotiation meeting, TURB, box 13, B e 34, Negotiations Balletin No. 6, W A Records, roll I , Be - 1947, Poky &-Ilunittee.

If the strike had only partially snccessfd in extracting concessions, it had served as s very effective t d in consolidating union membership, at least in terms of numbers.

-%&, pp. 127-28. . .

Ibid, p. ,126.- '

B.J. Melsness and E. Ddskog, to the membership of IWA local 1-357, 18 N o v e m k 1947, W A RecoTds, roE 3, f3e - 1. Stewart Alsbtny, District President, 1948-49. *

Bid,

Bjarnason inr'eniew. See betow, this chapter, for furtfier discussion of this matter.

Procedngs of Ihe Ten& Annual Convention of the IWA (International); p. 170.

Proceedings of, Tenth- Annual Convention of IWA District Council No. 1, supplemeni #I, District Officers' R q m , p. 6. - P

' mid., suppl&nt #5, Wages and Contract Committee ~ e p a % ~ . 5 0 .

Ibid, supplement #5, Wages and Contract ~0rnmitk.k R e p a , p. 49.

%id+, p. 22.

Mostgomery, "Ammican Wo*& and the New Deai Formula," p. 171. ?i

Jack Atkinson, Business Agent, local 1-80, to Dalskog, 8 February 1947, W A Recards, roll 1, file - 1947, Political Action.

@

B.C. Wemion of L a b analysis of some of the objectionable featutes of Bill 39, W A Records, roll 3, f2e - 1946-47, Bill 39.

- --

I Cbap&~ine&tintred L

r 19. ~ J ~ W ~ k a , 1 0 M a t c h 1 9 4 7 ; R e o x , " T h c P ~ s a g e o f ~ 3 9 ~ ' p . 1 2 1 .

20. Pearson to W h e l l , 24 January 1947, Records of the British Columbia L&UT Relations Board (Correspondence, reports, briefs, memos regarding the establishment and operation of the LRB) GR 1086, box 1, file 18, PABC.

2 1. B.C. Lumber Wmke~ 10 March 1947. - :

22. Rraox, "The Passage of Bill 39," p. 129.

23. Vancouver Sldn, 1 Apnl1947. Q

T 24. Knox, "The Passage of Bill 3,9," fip. 161-62.

26. ~ i & t e s of Wages wd Contract Conference, 29-30 March 1947, Ritchett, box 5, - file 7.

28. Ibid. L

29. Wages Cornpittee report to Wages and Contract Conference, 29-30 March 1947, m, box 13, file 35; B.C. Lumber Worker. 3 1 March 1947.

30, R.C. J,umber Wmker, 2 1 Apd 1947. * 3 1. Vancouver Labotn C o w 3 Resolution on ~il1.39, IWA Records, roll 3, fde - 1946

47, Bill 39.

32.' B.C. Jamber W o r b 21 April 1947.

33. Cited in Knox, 'The Passage of Bill 39," p. 140. -

34. Af Parkin, 'yere's How the Labour-Spy Racket Works," md exc m sworn affidavit by Don McAllister, B.C. Jdurnber Worker, 21 April 1947.

35. IWA Records, roll 1, file - 1947, Don McAllister, B.C. Lumber Workex, 21 April -'. 1947. t

36. Prenhce Bloedel to the employees of Bloedel Stewart and Welch Ltd., 30 April , 1947, IWA Records, roll 1, file - 1947, Don McAllister.

38. B.C. J,umber Worker, 27 January 1947.

39. Quoted'in Parkin, ''Labour-Spy Ragket," B.C. Lumber Worker, 21 April 1947.

40. Speakers' notes, NcrA Records,.mIl 1, file - 1947, Speakers Committee, WA-

. . . . Minut& of6 May 1947 negotiating meeting, TtTRB, box 13, me 34,' - >. ,. - , . . 6: ' ' . . : -

\ *4

FIR Circular FC&, #224,20 h4ay 1947; Vancouver News Herald 5 ~one.-1947: L*,

u'

Vancouver Sgn, 5 May 1947; IWA pamphlet, "High ProfitsEquals H$gkf&ice&" . - TUIW, box 13, Ne 3 S _ - < . .. ,2 . *- " *

7; . r r - - , !

Minutes of negotiating meeting, 20 May 1947, W, box 13, file 35. . . . 9 . '. . .

I : ' . , vancow& Sun, 20 May 1947. %

g I

Minutes of District Policy Committee, 23 May.1947, IWA Records, roll 1, file -, ? a

1947, Policy cbmmirtee, Negotiations Bulletin. ' .

FIR Circular Files; #213,28 March 1947.

In January 1949, faced wi* the need to &se a strike fund quickly, as the existing fund was tied up in a corn battle, George Mitchell spoke against another dues increase: "So I saw that if we went out to our membership now, you know how long it took us to get everybody on the $2.00, then I say to yau we would be doing this instead of laying down ow program of wages, hours and working conditions. I am in agreement with taking a voluntary assessment if possible, but going out at the present time to try to get everybody to assign 50 cents-I say brothers, that is dcide." Proceedings of the Twelfth Annual Convention of IWA District Council NO. 1, 15-16 January 1949, p. 168.

The union issued a "Day's Pay Button" to all contributors, J3.C. 1-umber Workes. 5 May 1947.

Vancouver b, 26 May 1947.

/ Press Rel,ease, 28 May 1947, from IWA District Policy Committee, IWA R'ecords, I, roll 1, file - 1947, Policy Committee, Negotiations Bulletin. c

3.C. Lumber Worker, 16 June 1947; minutes of negotiating meeting, 26 May 1947, IWA Records, roll 1, file - 1947, Policy Committee, Negotiations Bulletin.

Ibid.

Negotiations Bulletin No. 9, IWA R q r d s , roll 1, file - 1947, Policy Committee, Negotiations Bulletin.

I

Minutes of Northern Interior negotiations meeting, 30 May 1947, IWA Records, roll 1, file - 1947, Policy Committee, Negotiations Bulletin. . .

330 June 1945.

Thomas MacDonald to Dalskog, 1 May 1947, IWA Records, roll 1, file - 1947, Thomas MacDonald.

Me1 Fulton to various locals, 14 May 1947, Higgins (1-363) to Fulton, 27 May 1947, Fulton to McCuish (1-7 I), 27 May 1947, Lang Mackie (1-85 business agent) to Fulton, 20 May 1947, J. Wainscott (1-1 18) to Fultoa, 30 May 1947, Fred

- -499- &

CBapter Nine Continued

W w n (1-80) u, Fulton, 2 June 1947, IWA Records, roll 1, file - 1947, Speakeis Committee, IWA-a0 Distiict Council #1. i-

i 58. Neil McAuley to Fulton, n.d., Ibid

IWA Records, roll 1, file - 1947, Speakers Committee, IWA-CIO, District Council #1.

60. Mjmtes of local 1-357 Special Executive meeting, 30 May 1947, Pritchett Papers,

Y 8, 26. 6 l >eedings of Special mmminee hearings with regard to the affairs of local 1-

f 357, 17-20 December 1946, Pritchett Papers, box 5, file 4; report to local 1-357 from International Investigating Committee re local fmances, 20 December 1946, Pritchett Papers,hx 10, -file 1; Bjarnason interview.

McAuslane speech quoted in Harold Ritchett, "Labour rallies the people to defeat the Coalition," Pacific Tribune 20 June 1947; Pacific Tribune, 13 June 1947; Knox, "The Passage of Bill 39,?' p. 143.

B.C. Lumber Worker, 16 June. 1947. - ,

Pacific Tribune, 13 June 1947.

Minutes of local 1-357, Special Executive meeting, 9 June 1947, Pritchett Papers, box 8, file 26.

This account is based on a report by,Don Carlson of the Vancouver &J,Q, 14 June 1947.

FfR Circular Files, #228,4 June 1947.

Newspaper clipping, 2 ~ u n e 1947, TUREt, box 13, file 34.

FIR Circular Files, #227,5 June 1947.

FIR Circular Files, #230, 11 June 1947.

Knox, "The Passage of Bill 39," p. 142.

Vancouver &n, 23 June 1947.

Pacific Tribune, 27 June 1947. 4

bid, 20 June 1947. .+ e n , *

%

ieht to Manage, Harris, The R pp. 123-25; Levenstein, Communism,. Anticommunism and the CIO, p. 217, .+

i ' -500- / .

Chapter Nine Continued \

ii //

c Tnhung, 27 June 1947. // /

Bert Melsness, "Lumberworkers 'Gain Outstanding Victory," B.C. Ixtmber Workq, 14 July 1947.

/ I

1

For 1948 results see B.C. Jlumber Worker. 24 March 1948. Total votes cast in the coast locals were 14,261 in 19,iZ7, and 12,918 in 1948. In 1947 the strike ballot passed by 67.8 percent, and in 1948 Dalskog was elected president with only 66 pacent of the tQtal vote. , EIR Circular Files, #23 1, 1: 4 June 1947.

Minutes of District ~xeqdtive meeting, 22 June 1947, Pritchen Papers, box 4, file 14. I/

B.C. Lumber ~orkeb'30 June 1947.

FIR Circular Files, {233,30 June 1947.

FIR Circular F' es, #234, 3 July 1947; Melsness, "Lumberworkers Gain

\

i Outstanding Vic ry;" Master Agreement - 1947.

- r" FIR hircular $es, #328, 1 December 1948.

Billings intekew.

Vancouv 12 July 1947; Vancouver Provincg,' 6 August, 9 August and 12 ,

August 947; B,C. Lumber Worker, 14 July, 28 July and 11 August 1947; proc gs of the Eleventh Annual Convention on IWA District Council No. 1,3- 5 Janu i' 1948, supplement #1, District Officers' Report, p. 17.

i Mel,$ness, ''Lumbenuorkers Gain outstanding Victory."

E$port fir prices were up 88 percent over 1945. Return on capital for the major qhglomerates for 1946 was in the 40 to 60 percent range. B.C. Lumber Profits

1 hd the IWA Wage Demands-A Preliminary Survey, 6 May 1947, TURIS, box 44, file 4.

/ d , 9 , British Columbia, Department-of T,mde and Industry, Bureau of Economics and.

Statistics, Forest Industries of B.C., Part 11, Section 1, "Statistical Record of the ' Logging Industry and Summary of the Forest Industries in British Columbia," August 1954, Table II, Principal Statistics of Woods Operations in British Columbia, p. 33, and ''Statistical Record of 'the Lumber Industry in British Columbia," February 1955, Table N, Principal Statistics of the Lumber Industry in British Columbia, pp. 13 and 15; Deutsch $t ai., "Economics of Primary

uction," vol. 1, Table 1 3, Logging: Employment and Output in the Coast and Regions of British Columbia, 1946-56, p. 105, and Table 14, Sawmilling

in British Columbia: Indices of Employment Earnings and Output: 1946-1955, p. 109.

Vancoyver {editorial), 5 July 1947.

Melsness, ' 'Lpmkworkm Gain Outstanding ~ictory:"

Pacific Tribw, 25 3 uly 1947. r

Vancouvkr 2 September and 1 1 October 1947; Pacific Tribune -19 septemb& *

1947; Knox, ' m e Passage of Bill 39," chapter seven.

Minutes of District Executive meeting, 8 September 1947, box 4, fde 15. IntePhational Beard Member Dalskog was appointed interim president apparently since none of the three vice-presidents were able ro assume Pritchett's duties. Pacific Tribune, 12 September 1947. & .

T - Pacific Tribune, 19 September 1947.

Pacific Tribung, 3 October 1947.

See Knox, "The Passage of Bill 39," chapter seven.

bid., p. 148.

bid., p. 150; Vancouver b, 4 O c t o k 1947.

3.C. Lumkr Workq, 20 October 1947.

-, 3 November 1947; Knox; "The Passage of Bill 39," p. 15 1.

Rebecca B. Grtlver, A n c a n History (New York: - Meredith Corporation, 1972), pp. lC##MK)I.

Penner, Canadian Communism, p. 221; J.L. lack; "The Stalinist Image of Canada: and Soviet Press-19-47- lPS5," J.aborar/le T m v d 21 (Spring 1988): 153-7 1.

Henry Pelling, T h e m Cornmltnist Pam: A meal Profile . . (tondon: Adam

and Charles Black, 1958), p. 143.

Stambin, Amerkm Communism in Cnm . . , p. 171.

Bid, also Levenstein, fnrnrnunism* Antic-ism. and the CK?, pp. 208-32.

fic Tr ibw, 3 October 2947,

The \following analysis of Canadian economic policy is based on Cuff and Granatstein, Arkrican Do- pp. 21-63.

Haticmat Affairs Monthly, December 1947; Pacific Tribune, 14 November 1947.

Pacific Tribune, 21 W m 1947.

Tim Buck, Beep Cmada In&pendeny, Summary of Report to Meeting of Labor- Progressive Party, National Commi,ttee, Toronto, 6-9 January 1948 (Toronto: Progress Books, n-d.). . .

. "

Pemw, Canadian Communism, p. 230.

Starobin,.American Cornmu . . nism in Cnsls, pp. 289-90.

Wallace, without an established party organizition, was ultimately more dependent on it than the Canadian said democrats.

Levenstein, Communism, Anticommunism. and the CIO, pp. 224-25.

b i d , p. 265. Starobin agrees with this assessment: "To refuse compliance was possible only where the rank-and-fde was sufficiently behind its leaders and sufficiently in control of local plant situations to by-pass the Labour Board." S t a roh , America

. . n Communism in Cnsis, p. 169.

Chapter Ten C.ontintJed , ,-

- 9 1 8. Levenstein, Communign, A n t i c v m n i s m the CIQ, p. 217; proceedings of the Eleventh b a a f Convention of W A District Council No. 1, p. 2 1, speech of President Fadling.

19. Prc>ceedi4&s-ofthe Eleventh Annual Convention of IWA Disaict Council No. 1, p. 2 I, speech of President Fadling.

20. 3.C. mber W d g ~ 8 September 1947. - > 2 1. Roceedings of the Eleventh Annual Convention of W A Disnict Council No. 1,

pp. 126-28; Jack Greenall, W Event (Vancower: Progressive Workers Movement, 1965). A copy of this pamphlet was g e n m s I y provided to me by John Stanton.

- 22. Lembcke and T a m , One U n ~ o n . ~n . W M , pp. 144-45. fn 1952 atsthe Seattle" Smith Act Triats, be claimed he left the party in 1946.

One ex-party member from Canada, ione el Edwards, has gone so far as to raise the possibility that Larsen was an FBI agent Interview yith Lionel Edwards, Vancouver, 7 December 1987. Greenall calls him one of the "betrayers" of District One who later (in 1952) appeafed on television before one of the Un-American Activities Conmiam '"and with fact and figures denounced communism and all its works." Greenafl, The I.W.A. F w .

F.C. Jmnber Work= 22 September 1947.

Greenall to Fadling 20 October 1947, cited in proceedings of the Eleventh Annual Convention of IWA District Council No. 1, p. 127. ,

Fadling to Greenall, 25 October 1947, and Greenall to Fadling, 29 October 1947, cited in bid., pp. 117-19.

28 . Proceedings of the Eleventh Annual Convention of W A District Council No. 1, District Oficm' Report, Supplement #I, p. 20.

, 29. B.C. JTtlrnber W m k ~ 8 September and 3 November 1947. Union support for Dalskog was st i l l fairly hgh He polled 17,876 to 27,787 for Hampg.

3 1. Rocewgs of rhe Eleventh Annual Convention of IWA District Council No. 1, Disnicl Officm' Report Supplement f 1, p. 7.

32. Bid., pp. 66-68.

31. Procesdings of the Eleventh Annual Convention of IWA District Council No. 1, p. 34.

Chapter Ten Continued

Proceedings of the ~feven th ' kua l Convention of IWA District Council No. 1, p. 64.

%

Greenall, The 'f.W.A, Fiasc~. . 9 6.. - L

Prm@ngs of ihe Eleventh Annual Convention-of IWA District Council No. 1, p. 97. . a,

I

E d . , pp. 105-06.

Pritchett expressed fear regarding this latter p i n t at the 19 October 1947 quarter1 y Dismct Council meeting. Sez Pritchett Papers, box 4, file 27.

- Vancouver & 5 January 1948.

Vancouver % 7 January 1948.

Vancou~r & 13 January 1948. h

Vancouver J?rovina 12 January 1948. Fadling was roundly condemned in the Jamber W& for, in hiS haste to a#ack the British Columbia District programme, placing an ad in a scab-pduced daily. B.C. J , Q ~ Worker, 28 January 1948.-

The Voice of the IWA, 26 January 1948, radio broadcast by A.F. Hartung, F i t Vl'ce-President of W A international, Pritchett Papers, b x 3, file 11. In addition to Alsbury and Mitchell, the white blix: slate was comprised of Lloyd Whalen (1-217) nominated for First Vice-President against Pritchett; Bill Lynch from Kamloops, running against Bergren for Second Vice-President; a d Andy Smith, First Vice- President of 1-357, running against Mark Mosher for Third Vice-president. B.C. m b e r WorkerJ 12 January 1948.

"Along the Skidroad: A Review of Labour Developments During the Past Week," prepared and delivered by Bob Morrison for Stuart Research Service Ltd., for broadcast on radio stations CKMO, CKNW, and CJOR, 8 January 1948, Pritchett Papers, box 8, file 2.

Text of Pritchett's "Green Gold" bmtckast over CKWX on 1 1 F e h w 1948, in 'fic Tri 20 February 1948; Vancouver h v i n c g , 9 January, 2 February

2 3 F e s i 9 4 8 . l

B.C. Lumber Work= 28 January 1948.

Text of 11 February 1948 "Green Gold" in Pacific Tribune, 20 Fehary 1948.

-505- i

Chapter Ten Continued -b

, 28 January 1948; Levenstein, m r ~ ~ ~ ~ u n l s m . and the CIO, pp. 265-66; Lembclte d d T a r n , union ig . .

Woo& pp. 9, 121 and 123.

53. Bid, pp. 121-22; Abella, Nationalism. Communism. and C a n d a n Labour, 178; B.C. Lumber Workq, 30 June 1948.

P

Lembcke and Tattum, One Union- in 'WOO& pp. 121-22; Abella, Nationalism, v i m Labour,. pp. 12830.

B.C. Lumber Worker, 24 March 1.948. .

B.C. hmber WO*~, 17 ~anuary, and 1 1 February 1948. I -

Levenstein, Communism. Anticommunism and the CIO, p. 226; according to ,

Starobin, Bridgespwas close to anarcho-syndicalism and "never a Communist" though he "enjoyed intimate ties with the Party, usually on his own terms." Starobin, . . p. 258.

Gruver, An American History, p. 1001;

Lembcke and Tatturn, One I Jn~o . . n In Woo& p. 67.

Len de Caux, Labor Radical: From the Wobblies to CIO.(Boston: Beacon Press, 1970), p. 298.

Ibid., p. 348.

Lembcke and Tarmm, One Union in W@, p. 78,

Starobin, American Communism in C n s ~ . . , pp. 25$,and 286. Starobin claims the ex-wobbly, Bridges, derived his intense syndicalism from his Australian heritage.

Ibid, p. 286.

AbeHa, Nationalism. Communism. and Canadian Labour, pp. 94-99; Canadian Unionist, h h 1948.

B.C. J.umber Worker, 24 March 1948.

White, A Hard Man to Beat. p. 168.

Abella, Erahalisrn. Cmmunism. and Canadian Labom, p. 121.

Knox, 'The Passage of Bill 39," p. 157.

72. Vancouver & 25 ~ o v e m b e r 1947.

Chapter Ten Continued

73. Minutes of District Executive meeting, 26 January 1948, Pritcktt Papers, box 4, - ' file 17. -- %

74. Knox, "The Passage of Bill 39," p.. 152.

' 7 6 . Vancouver 23 January 1948.

77. Industfial Can& June 1948.

7 8. Vancouver & 7 April 1948.

79. B.C. ,Lumber Worker, 5 May 1948.

80. Knox, "The Passage of Bill 39," pp. 156-61; B.C., Statutes, 1948, 12 Geo. 6, c. 32, ss. 50, 62 and 72.

1947-48: Re- -

1 .. Vancouver & 1 1 October 1947. 1

@

2.. Minutes of qu-ly District Council meeting, 19, October 1947, Pritcden Papers, box 4, file 27.

I

3. B_.C Lumber W a k q , 14 July 1947. I

4. Proceedings of the Tenth Annual Convention of IWA District ~ouncb No. 1, ip. 126-29; Statement iri Support of Wage Increases for Shingle Workers, February 1947, TURB, box 44, file 5. I

5 . Stuart to Dalskog, 1 1 March 1947, FIR Old Arbitration Files, Arbidtion, 1947, Shingle Mill Operators vs. IWA District Council #1 (hereafter 1947-swgles).

6 . Stuart to Pritchea, 17 July 1947, FIR Old Arbitration Files, 1947-~hindes. 6

7. Pritchett and Dalskog to Membership of IWA District Council #1,9 July/ 1947, FIR Old Arbitration. Files, 1947-Shingles. I

I

8. Carlyle to Chief Shop Stewards in all Shingle Mills, 10 July 19471 FIR Old Arbitration Files, 1947-Shingles. .t I

L

9. Stuart to Pritcheu, 17 July 1947, FIR Old Arbitration Files, 19&$3hingled.-

10. FIR Circular Files, #247, 27 August.1947; Statement of Counsel foi Shingle . Operators to Arbitration Board, 22 October 1947, and W.K Heffernan, FIR legal counsel, to all shingle operators, 29 August 1947, FIR Old Arbitration Files, 1947- Shingles. b

1 1. FIR Circular Files, #247, 27 August 1947. .. . 9-

12. Knox, 'The Passage of Bill 39," p. 146.

13. Statement of Counsel f a Shingle Operators to Arbitration Board, 22 October 1947.

14. Pritchett memo to locals, 3 September 1947;FIR Old Arbitration Files, 1947- Shingles; minutes of District Executive meeting, 8 September 1947, Pritchett a Papers, box 4, file 15.

15. Vancouver Sldn, 2 September 1937. The largest prosecution was said to have been against 600 Doukhobors in 1932.

6 Statement submitted by District One IWA-(30, to-second session of Arbitration Board, 23 October 1947, FIR Old Arbitration Files, 1947-Shingles.

1

17. Minutes of meeting of large committee, 21 October 1947, minutes of meeting of Stuart Research Service with Shingle Operators, 22 October 1947, minutes of

$9 Shirngk Operators @ey meeting, 24 Octo6er 1947, FIR Old A r ~ r r r t h Files, 1947-Shingles.

18. Statement of Counsel for Shingle Operators to Arbitration Board., 22 October 1947.

19. BSW tuok particular exception. This &as one in a series of disagreements with Stuart which wodd result in BSW brbrealcing away from the Stuart group of 4- - companies in 1949, temparily. Billings interview.

/'

20. Statement submitted byfitrift One d-CIO, to second session of Arbitration Board, 23 October 194

2 1. FIR Circular F ~ H , #260,7%ovember 1947.

22. Minutes of Momal Conference on Trainmen's Problems, 30 January 1945, , box 12, file 12.

23. Memo to Stuart Research Service re Trainmen in Coast Logging Camps, 25 . Octokr 1945, TURB, box 12, file 12,

24. Stuart Research Service response to W A Brief of 25 October 1945 on Trainmen, 29 January 1946, TURB, Mx-12, file 12.

B

- 25. , George F. Gregory, Chairman, Reasons for Decision in Bloedel, Stewart and Welch vs. IWA local 1-363 and R CaBander and G. McEntee, FIR Old Arbitration Files, Bloedel, Stewart and Welch vs. TWA local 1-363 and R Callander and G. McEntee (hereafter BSW vs, 1-363). Not all logging operations employed train crews, depending on location and scale of operation. Still, in 1947, trbcks were not widely in use and logging trains were employed by many of the .most important firms such as BSW, APL, CFP, Comox Logging, Elk River, ITM, Hillcrest, Lake Log, Malahat, Victoria Lumber and Manufacturing. TWA District Council #1 submission to Regionat War Labour Board of British Columbia re Trainmen's Wages in Coast Logging Camps, 3 September 1946, FIR Old Arbitration Files, BSW vs. 1-363.

26. Minutes of Dis-trict Executive meeting 6 November 1947, Pritchett @pen, box 4, file 15. 6 - F

27. George F. Gregory, Chairman, Reasons for Decision, FIR Old Arbitration Files, BSW v s 1-363.

5

28. FIR Circulm Files, #258, 18 October 1947.

29. -Lumber Worker. 3 Novemk 1947.

30. Decision of T.A. Mitchell, union representative, and memo fiom J.W. Challenger, superintendent, to all employees, 26 November 1947, FIR Old Arbitration Files, BSW VS. 1-363.

3 1. Minutesyf Disaict Executive meeting, 15 December 1947, Pritchett Papers, box 4, file 16.

Chapter Eleven Continued --

Dalskog to Stuart, 9 December 1947, and-Stuart to Ddskog, 11 December 1947, cited in F R C-%adar mes, #262, f 2 h e @ b e i 1947.

FIR Circular Files, 1128528 January 1948.

Minutes of District Executive meedng, 20 ~ k u a r ~ 1948, box 4, file 17. \

. Decision of T.A. w, union representative, FIR Old Arbitration Files, BSW vs. 1-363. / ' - -

'u

/--

Minutes of Cdast Negotiation = k g , 24 January 1948, IWA Records, roll 1, fie - 1948, Meeting Minlrtes of District Policy cormnhe.

Minutes of BCLA g e n d meeting, 25 Novemk 1947, COFL

Minutes of BCLA spead general meeting, 2 December 1947, COFI. ,

B.C+ Lumber Workez:, 23 February 1948.

Minutes of District Executive meetings, 15 March and 17 May 1948, Pritchett Papers, box 4, file 18; B.C. & u m k Worker, 25 February 1948.

IWA , Statement to RV. Stuart and Forest Industry Employers, 22 January 1948, Pritchett Papers, box 6, fde 18; FIR Circular Files, #269, 29 January 1948; minutes of District Policy Committee meeting, 21 January 1948, W A Records, roll 1, file - 1948, Meeting Minutes of District Pdicy Committee.

Statement sqbmitted by District One IWA-CIO, to second session of Arbitration Board, 23 Octokr 1947.

-- 1 -.

\

S ~ a n to Dalskog, 11 March 1947, FIR Old kk itration Files, 1947 - Shingles. P Stuart to Dalskog, 29 January 1948, cited in FIk Circular Files, #269,29 January 1948; minutes of negoriating meeting, 24 J a n w 1948, W A Records, roll 1, file - 1948, Meeting MinutemFBmmP . . 43 iq-mdt tee .

_/--

B.C. Lu- Workq, I 1 February 1948. /

Minutks of District Executive meetings, 15 March and 17- May 1948, Pritchett P a w , box 4, Ne 18; minutes of District Executive meeting, 23 Febnrary 1948, Pritcliett Papers, box 4, file 17.

/ N

Minutes of District Executive meeting, 15 March 1948, Pritchen Papers, box 4, file 18; B.C. Jlurnbx W w k e 7 A@ 1948.

knutes of ~istrict'~xecutive meeting, 17 May 1948, Pritchett Papers, box 4, file 18; B.C. Lumber Workm, 7 Apnl1948.

FIR Circular Files, #279,,.12 Apnl 1948.

5 1. Minm, crf Dimkt ~~ rneering, 17 May 1948, Pritchett Papers, box 4, file A f 8.

P 1948 Neg-oons: 1,egal . a . ism T n u r n ~ h ~ - @ B

1. Minutes of District Poky Committee meeiting, 2 July 1948, Pritchett Papas, box 5, fXe 2; minutes of negotiation meeting, 22 April 1948, Pritchett Papers, box 5, file 8.

II .. 2. Knox, "The Passage of Bill 39," p. 158.

. . 3. B.C. 1,arnber Worker, 7 Apnl1948.

4. Minutes of District Negotiating Committee Meeting, 28 Apnl 1948, box 5, file, 9; B.C., Statutes, 1948, 12 Geo. 6, c. 31, s. 44. -

5. FIR Circular Files, #267,20 January 1948 and #268,28 January 1948. d'

6. FIR Circular Files, #268.

7. FIR Circular Files, #268, and #279, 12 April 1948. * -

8. Minutes of negotiation meetings, 3 May, 11 May, 17 May, 18 May, 25 May, 26 .

May 1948, Pritchett Papers, box 5, file 8; Employers' Statement, 26 May 1948, - Pritchett Papers, box 6, B e 18. . -

9. FIR Circular Files, #285, 12 May 1948. ,-,

10. EIR Circular File-s, #285, #286,17 May 1948, #287,18 May 1948.

11. Minutes of District Policy Committee meetings, 12 April and 9 May 1948, IWA '

Records, roll 1, me - 1948, Meeting Minutes of District Policy Committee.

12. Minutes of District Executive meeting, 17 May 1948, Pritchett Papers, box 4, fde . 18.

13. Minutes of District Negotiating Committee meetings, 11 May and 21 May 1948, . PritchettSPapers, box 5, fde 9; minutes of District Executive meetings, 17 Mays "

1948, Pritchett Papers, box 4, file 18, and 21 June 1948, Pritchett Papers, box 4, file 19.

14. &utes of District Negotiating Committee meeting, 1 1 May 1948. P

16. B.C. Lumber Worker, 5 1948.

1 7. Vancouver a, 18 May 1948.

1 8. Minutes of District Executive meeting, 17 May 1948.

- Chapter Twelve Continued

Employers' Statemeqt, 26 Migr 1948, Pritchett papers, box 6, file 18.

fie Tribune, 14 May 1948. -

IF

Minutes of District N e g o w g Committee meeting, 26 May 1948, Pritchett Papers, box5,fileg. .

Minutes of District pgotiating Committee meeting, 27 May 1948, Pritchett Papers, box 5, file 9.

FIR Circular.Files, #Dl, 3 June 1948.

Minutes of District Negotiating Committee meeting, 27 May 1948, Pritchett Papers, box 5, file 9.

Minutes of.Local 1-357 Executive meeting, 28 May 1948, Pritchett Papers, box 8, file 26.

Minutes of District Policy Committee meeting, 2 June 1948, Pritchett Papers, box 5, file 2.

\ '

Minutes of District Negotiating Committee meeting, 3 June 1948, Pritchett P box 5, file 9.

~ i n u t e s of Local 1-357 Executive meeting, 1 1 June 1948, Pritchen Papers, box 8, file 26. - - - i FIR Circular Files, #293, 1 1 June 1948.

Minutes of District Executive meeting, 21 June 1948, Pritchett papers, box 4, fde . 19. In fact, the committee had received resulp from only four locals indicating 95 percent rejection.

4

FIR Circular Files, #295, 23 June 1948; ~ecords of Forest Industrial Relations Ltd., Master Agreement, Negotiation Files, File on IWA Fighting Fund, June 1948 - August 1948 (hereafter FIR File - Fighting Fund). . .

P.G. Frewer to Stuart, 30 June 1948, re: Contributions to the "Fighting Fund," reports up to June 28th, FIR File - Fighting Fund.

J.E. B e d , Personnel ~ a n a ~ e i , to Stuart Research Service, 26 July 1948, FIR File - Fighting Fund.

U

FIR File - Fighting Fund.

Transcript of questions to Stuart Alsbury, 4 October 1948, Pritchett Papers, box 10, file l; minutes of qumerly District Council meeting, 3 October 1948, Pritchett Papers, box 5, file 1.

23 September 1948. At the October quarterly council . r

meeting, 1-217 contributions as of 15 August were reported to be $1683. - The '

-513- P

* - - Chapter Twelve %tint& '..

Stmton, Bever Sav Die!, pi 200.

B-, 30 June 1948.

B.C. Lumber Worker, 16 June 1948.

Circular File, #289,26 May 1948. + .

MinuBs of negotiation meeting, 25 June 1948 (1 l:?5 A.M.), Pritchett Papers, box 1 5, file 8. ?

5, file 8. ~ i n & s of negotiation meetings, 24 June and 25 June 1948, Pritchett Papers, box /

& / i

Minutes of District Negohatidg Cornminee meeting, 24 June 1948, Pritchett Papers, ,/' box 5, Ne 9. i

/

Minutes of Local 1-357 Executive meedng, 11 June 1948. /

Minutes of Local 1-357 Executive meeting, 25 June 1948, Pritchen Papers, box 8, file 26. - Leaflet: "The Union is in Danger! Some Plain Talk About Fhhces," n.d., Pritchett Papers, box 6, file 7. Fadling, who had been present at negotiation sessions up to 25 June, was suddenly absent on 25 June, probably accompanying Mitchell to Pofiand Tke Board quickly complied with Mitchell's request, setting up a committee including three IWA members from outside the Dishict, and Harry Chappell as CCL representative. Vancouver b, 3 July 1948; Abella, Bationalism. Communism. and Canadian Labour, p. 130; Lembcke and Tamm,

e Union in Wood, p. 122.

Minutes of negotiation meeting, 29 June 1948 (1:20 P.M.), Pritchett Papers, box 5, file 9.

Lembcke and Tarmm, One Union in Wood, p. 123.

Minutes of Negotiating Committee meeting, 29 June 1948 (3:45 P.M.), Pritchen Papers, box 5, file 9.

Minutes of District Policy Committee meeting, 2 July 1948, Pritchett Papers, box Statutes, 1948, c. 155, s. 75. The account of this LRB proposal of on Dalskog's report to a 2 July Policy Committee meeting. That it

was an authentic proposal, however, is corroborated by f ' e r discussions on the . ma= in July and August reported in LRB correspondence. See Records of the British Columbia Labour Relations Board (correspondence, reports, briefs, memos regarding activities of members of LRB, 1948-52) GR 1087, box 1, file 3, PABC.

Chapter Twelve Continued i

Minutes of quarterly District Council & e ~ g , 18 July 1948, Pritchett ~ iqk r s , box 4, file 28; H.W. Maisey, Secretary to LRB, to Smelts and Strange, 3 August 1948, GR 1087, box 1, file 3.

Maisey to Smelts and Strange, 3 August 1948, GR 1087, box 1, file 3.

B.C. Lumber Worker. 30 June 1948. I I

Minutes of District Policy Committee, 2 July 1948, Pritchett papers, box 5, file 9.

Minutes of negotiation meeting, 2 July 1948, Pritchett papers, box 5, file 8. 1 According to Emil Bjamason, Webster was engaged by the International to help its "Voice of the IWA" transcripts. Bjarnason interview.

Vancouver Sun. 3 July 1948.

i ' Minutes of negotiation meeting, 5 July 1948, Pritchett Papers, box 5, fde 8.

Minutes of Dismct Negotiating Committee meeting, 5 July 1948, Pritchett dapers, box 5, file 9. i Minutes of negotiation meetings, 6,7, 8 and 9 July 1948, Pri'tchett Paper , box 5, file 8.

I s h u t e s of negotiation meeting, 9 July 1948.

f

Ibid. /

Ibid.; minutes of Local 1-357 Executive meeting, 9 July 1&8,&ntchett Papers, box 8, file 26. I /

b I

I Minutes of negotiaticn meeting, 13 July 1948, Pritchett Papers, fmx 7, fde 8.

/ 1 Vancouver b, 14 June 1947. 1 . 1

Minutes of District Policy Committee, 13 July 1948, Pntchett pap&, box 5, /

Minutes of District Negotiating Committee meeting, 14 July 1948j ktchett apers, box 5, file 9. L i I N;

I

Vancouver 15 July 1948; ~'bella, Nationalism. Communism. andCanadian , . Labour, p. 130.

B.C. Lumber Worker, 30 June 1948.

Minutes of quarterly District Council meeting, 18 July 1948, Pritchett Papers, box 4, file 28. -

B.C. Lumber Worker, 21 July 1948.

Notes: Chauter Thirteea

1948: The S ~ l i t

AbeUa, Nationalism. Communism. and Canadian Lab% chapter seven.

Lembcke and T a m One Union in Wood, chapter five.

Transcript of "Voice of the IWA" broadcast, CJOR radio, 19 July 1948, Pritchett *

Papers, box 3, file 1 1.

B.C. Lumber Worker, 28 July 19.48.

Transcript of "Voice of the IWA" broadcast, CJOR radio, 9 August 1948, Pritchett Papers, box 3, file 11.

B.C. Idumber Worker, 18 August 1948.

Minutes of District p&cy Committee meeting, 4 August 1948, Pritchett Papers, box 5, file 2; Abella, Patio&xsm. . - Corn munlsrn. and Canadian Labou, chapter seven. Murphy joined a panel with employer representative J.A. MacDonald, and chaired by Mr. Justice H.I. Bird with whom he had sat on the IWA's 40 how week arbitration the previous year.

F.W. Smelts, Member, LRB, to H.W. Maisey, Secretary, LRB, 23 July 1948, GR 1087, box 1,file3. .

B.C., Statutes,'1948, 12 Geo. 6, c. 31, s. '78(2). - i

F.W. Smelts and H. S m g e , to H.W. Maisey, 3 August 1948, memo re IWA Strike Vote, GR 1087, box 1, file 3.

Minutes of LRB meeting, 9 August 1948, Records of the British Columbia Labour Relations Board (minutes of meetings), GR 1038, PABC; minutes of Vancouver Committee of LRB meeting, 10 August 1948, GR 1038; Smelts and Strange to Maisey, 10 August 1948, memo re St&e Vote, GR 1087, box 1, file 3.

Minutes of LRB meeting, 18 August 1948, m'inutes of Vancouver Committee of LRB meetings, 20 August, 25 August, and 27 August 1948, GR 1038.

Vancouver & 17 August 1948.

Vancouver &.Q, 14 September 1948; B.C. Lumber Workq, 15 September 1948.

Minutes of quarterly District Council meeting, 3 October 1948, G. Hilland speahng in support of didiliation, Pritchett Papers, b x 5, file 1.

Interview with John Stanton, 8 July 1988.

Bjarnason interview.

f 8. Stanton int+miew, 22 October 1987.

19. ' Caron interview; Stanton ioterview, 22 October 1987; Edwards inttpiew.

20. Proceedings of the Eleventh Annual Convention of IWA District Council No. 1, p. 38. Murphy told @e convention: "I am opposed to just endorsing and not having anything to say about who thp candidates are or what the program is going to be, and having no conk$ as a &e unionist of the money my organization would vote in support of the program." '

2 1. Abella, Nationalism Cornnunism. and Canadian Labour pp. 102-05; Levenstein, rnmllmsm. Ant lmmun~sm. and the (30, pp. 272-75.

I

22. Pmckdhgs of the Eleventh h u a l Convention of IWA Disrrict Council No. 1, p. 39. 1

I

23. $man Research Service kt&, Brief to Board of Conciliation, 23 Augpst 1948, Pritchett Papers, box 6, Be 23.

24. B.C Lumber Worker, 1 September 1948.

Stuart Research Servicq Ld, ~ r i e f t o Board of Conciliatiorr,-23 August 1948.

"Along the Skidma" radio broadcast transcript, Stuart ResearCh Service, 27 August 1948, Pritcheg Papers, box 8, file 2.

Vancouver &,' 28, (30 and 31 August 1948; B.C. Lumber Worker, 1 September 1948. ,

B.C. J 4 u r n k 1

Worw, 1 September 1948.

B.C. Janber Wo~ke t 8 September 1948. ,'

Abella,Na%o ' 1 .

nahsrn Communism. and Canadian Labour, pp. 123-27.

Bid, pp. 125 and 133. < t k

Stanton interview, H u l y 1988.

33. VUCOUV~T h, 16, 17,20 and 29 September 1948. bing h e graveyard scene, Noble said he saw what he thought was "s id h n k who had +been sleeping out all night trying to chmb a fence. was Ernie Dalskog. He had his hands on &Ptq rung and apparently he couk? not get up OF down. I was on my way to help him when he tumbled headfirst to the ground." Dalskog then allegedly came nwting towards him, hat pulled down wer his eyes, "holding his pants up with one hand and trying to take pictures with the other." a,

34. M u t e s of hstrict Policy Cornmime. meeting, 19 September 1948, IWA Records, roll 1, Ne - 1948, Meesing m u t e s of Dstrict Policy Com3ntttee.

35. Ibid.

36. _ Minutes of District Policy Committee meeting, 20 S m 1948, W A Records, , roll 1, hie - 1948, Meting Minutes of District Policy Committee. Bird had wanted

to exclude the white bfw leaflet as evidence trut Murphy had joined -4th the employer representative in ove~-ndhg the chair. Vancower m, 28 August 1948.

37. B.C. Lumber W m h , 29 Septemk 1948.

3 8. Vancouver 2 October 1948; B.C. J ,umber Work= 6 October 1948.

39. Minutes of qumerly District Council meeting, 3 October 1948, Pritchett Papers, box 5, fde 1.

Greenall, The 1,W.A. Fiasc~; White, A Hard Man to Beat, p. 171; Caron interview; A r d e Greenwell interview with Allen Seager, 7 July 1976.

British Columbia Federation of Labour Legislative Proposals (ICA Act) to the Premier and Members of the Cabinet, 25 February 1949, GR 1087, box 1, file 2; Comparison of Recommehdations made by the British Columbia Federation of Labour to the Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Board, GR 1222, box 91, file 1; B.C., Statuw 1954, 3 Eliz. 2, e. 17, s. 2(1).

Minutes of quarterly District Council meeting, 15 October 1949, IWA Records, roll 5, file - 1949, District Quarterly &uncil Minutes; B.C. Lumber Worker, 11 August, 25 August, 8 September 1949; Vancouver: b, 15 August and 25 August 1949.

Vancouver u, 10, 19, 27, 29 May 1950, and 1, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 14, 15 June 1950; Vancouver prOvincg, 7 June and 9 June 1950.

Master Agreement, 1950, Article ID, Section 1.

Those worked out to be 11 cents in January and 14 cents in July.

Memorandum of Agreernent,Dated the 15th Day of February 1951, betweemDistrict Council #1, International Wdworkers of America, CIO, Representing Local Numbers 1-71, 1-80, 1-85, 1-1 18, 1-217, 1-357, 1-363 and Forest Industrial

Minutes of quarterly Disnict Council meeting, 14 July 195 1, IWA Records, roll 14, file - 195 1-52, Executive Board and Quarterly Council Minutes; proceedings of the Fifteenth Annual Convention of IWA District Council No. 1, Vancouver, 29-31 January 1952, pp. 287-88.

W A Demands in Current B.C. Lumber Dispute-1952, Add. Mss. 1057, box 2, file 3; J3.C 1 ,umber Worker clipping, 17 July 1952, RG 27, vol. 494, strike 112.

Proceedings of the Sixteenth Annual Convention of IWA District Council no. 1, Vancouver, 17-21 February 1953, pp. 100-01.

Minority Report of Lawrence Vanwe, 7 June 1952, Add. Mss. 1057, box 2, file %

4.

Alsbury to Mrs. E. Haglund, 27 June 1952, IWA Records, roll 10, file - 1952, J.S. Alsbury, -dent, General; minutes of District Policy Committee meeting, 13 June 1952, IWA Records, roll 17, N e - 1952, &strict Policy Committee Meeting m u t e s ; minutes of Segotiating Committee meeting, 6 June 1952, IWA Records,

. -

-519: . Chapter hurteen Cominued . ,

roll 23, file - 1952, Minutes, Negotiating Committee; B.C. Lumber Worker, 19 June 1952.

13. d u t e s of quarterly District Council meeting, 31 May - 1 June 1952, IWA Records, roll 17, file - 1952, Quarterly Council Minutes.

Q

14. B.C. Lumber work&, 17 July 1952, "A 'Blow by Blow' Strike Record." ,

15. Ibid., B.C. J,uumber Worker, 19 June 1952; Vancouver grOvince, 21 June 1952, minutes of District Policy Co~nmittee meeting, 13 June 1952.

1 6. Vancouver &, 17 June 1952.

17. Edward Jamieson, Secretary of LRB, to J.M. Billings, 26 June 1952, and Billings to Jamieson, 27 June 1952, Records of Forest Industrial Relations Ltd., Master Agreement, Negotiations Files, General Correspondence, Forest Industrial Relations Ltd., Vancouver, B.C.

1 8. Vancouver & 12 July 1952; B.C. Lumber Worker, 17 July 1952.

19. RG 27, vol. 494, strike 112.

20. Minutes of Dishict Executive meetings, 30 September 1952,29-30 January 1953, IWA Records, roll 10, file - 1952, J.S. Alsbury,President, Minutes.

2 1. Proceedings of the Sixteenth Annual Convention of IWA District Council No. 1, pp. 99-1 10.

r ~ \ , 22. Billings interview; ~embcke'and T a m , One Union in Wood pp. 141-43.

\ - 23. Billingsinterview.

24. Billings interview; Carl Winn, International Secretary-Treasurer, to J. Square, lWA District One Trustee, n.d., IWA Records, roll 8, file - 1952, Investigation Committee.

25. Minutes of quarterly District Council meeting, 16- 17 August 1952, IWA Records, roll 7, file - Executive Board Meeting Minutes.

26. IWA Records, roll 8, file - 1952, Investigation Committee.

27. Ibid, Ballard to Alsbury, 30 July 1952, IWA Records, roll 10, file - 1952, J.S. Alsbw, President, International Correspondence; minutes of quarterly District Council meting, 16- 17 August 1952.

28. Minutes of District Executive special meeting, 6 March 1953, to deal with Investigation Committee reports, IWA Records, roll 8, fde - 1952, Investigation Committee.

- 29. I W A Records, roll 8, file - 1952, G.H. Mtchell, General Correspondence.

Chapter Fomteen Cbntind

no. 2, March 1953, in IWA Records, roll 8, N&- J952, Timber-r-t vol. lv, Investigation Committee.

Vancouvg 16 April 1953.

Minutes of District Policy Committee meeting, 17 March 1953, and District Policy Committee recommendations to Wages and Contract Conference, 19 March 1953, IWA Records, roll 21, file - 1953, Policy Committee Minutes, Correspondence. ,

Press Rekase #5, IWA Records, roll 21, file - 1953, Press Releases, Speakers Notes, Coast Negotiations.

B.C. Lumber Worke~, 2 July 1953.

Transcript of 9 July 1953 "Green Gold" broadcast as reproduced in B.C. Lumber Worker, 16 July 1953.

Vancouver 1 1 July 1953.

Vancouver & 14 July 1953.

Vancouver b, 24 October 1953.

Vancouver Province, 21 December 1953.

B.C. Lumber Worker, 1st Issue November 1953. (The union paper stopped dating its issues by day, instead referring to them a? the fxst and second issues of each month). Efforts were made as well by the umon to keep strike breakers out of the interior by picketing the bus depot and train stations in Vancouver. These actions led to at least one arrest. Vancouver b, 30 November and 1 December 1953; Trail Dailv Times, 1 December 1953.

Photostatic copy of Lnterior Lumber Manufacturers Association, Bulletin No. 11 1, tonMembers with DNA Certif3cations, 17 October 1953, reproduced in ,F3.Ca Lumber Workex, 1 st Issue. November 1953.

Vancouver fiovince, 2 1 Member 1953.

Vancouver Province, 21 December 1953. The account of these strikes is based largely on documents and clippings in Federal Department of Labour files, RG 27,

I

vol. 503, strike 150, and RG 27, vol. 503, strike 127. *

Vancouver 2 Yanuq 1953. .-

Vancouver 7 November 195 1.

B.C., s m , 1954, 3 Eliz. 2, c. 17, s. 29.

b i d , .s. 40.

Ed, s. 50 (2) (a) and (b).

Chapter Fourteen Coptintzed a i -

B.C., &tutes, 1948, 12 Geo. 6, c. 155, s. 62. + -

B-C., Statutes, 1954, 3 Eliz. 2, c. 17, s. 55.

For a g e d review of the 1954 Act see "An Analysis of Bill 28," Angus MacInnis Collection, box 34, file 13, UBC-SC.

Vancouver h, 18 June 1954.

Press Release #5, IWA Records, roll 21, file - 1953, Press Releases, Speakers' Notes, Coast Negotiations; B .C. Jamber Worker, 1 st Issue March" 1954.

B.C. Lumber Worker, 1st Issue March 1954. r

Ibid. 'P

Speakers' Notes, IWA Records, roll 28, file - 1954, Negotiations, Coast; Strictly Confidential Memorandum to Members of Local Union Executive, 28 May 1954, ' IWA Records, roll 63, file - 1954, Coast Negotiations.

It appears likely from the test of much of Moms' official communication with his union and the media that he relied heavily on the International Research Department in drafting it.

Strictly Confidential Memorandum to Members of Local Union Executive, 28 May 1954. - 1

Speakers' Notes, IWA Records, roll 28, file -

B.C. J,urnber Worker, 2nd Issue June ,1954.

Speakers' Notes, W A Records, roll 28, file -

~ k c o u v e r a 18 June 1954.

954, Negotiations, Coast.

954, Negotiations, Coast.

B.C. Lumber Workq, 1st and 2nd Issues June 1955; Speakers' Notes for 1955-57 proposed contract prepared by District Policy Committee, IWA Records, roll 63, file - 1955, Coast Negotiations.

Proceedings of Eighteenth Amual 'Convention of IWA District Council No. 1, Vancouver, 14- 17 February 1955; President's Report, pp. 7-9.

Data on Lumbr Industry prepared for Local 1-85, Tables I-V,, Pritchett Papers, . box 8, file 18.

J.J. Deutsch, a., "Economics of Primary Production in British. Columbia, Volume IV, Industrial Relations in the Basic 'Industries of British Columbia" (Unpublished Manuscript, Universiy of British Columbia, 1959).

Ibid., pp. 28, 33, 34-36.

i

Chapter Fomteen Continued

Ed., pp. 35 and 38, V a ~ f ~ ~ ~ l v e r & 4 July, 5 July, 8 July 1957, and 28*3une, 30 June, 18 August 1958; Master Agreement - 1957, Article El, Section 2. In 1958, 69 of 173 operations voted against a strike. s4

vkcouver ~un , 17 September and 30 Sktember 1958

Vancouver Sun, 30 Septepber and 2 October 1958. Thompson, as he admitted publicly, had been a party member and ~rganizer during the 1930s, and as a member of the Relief Camp Workers' Union had participated in the On-teOttawa Trek. After the war he had worked as an LPP organizer in Alberta q,"; when he left the party. Vancouver a 24 November 1958, interview Thompson by Doug C o l h ; Lionel wwards i n t e ~ e w .

Vancouver &, 24 December and 27 December 1958.

Billings interview.'

White, A Hard Man to B a p. 172. . ,

1

Stanton, Never Say Die& p. 201.

Leinbcke Ad ~ a m m . , One Union in WooQ, p. 180.

Caron interview.

Edward* interview.

Nelson Wiseman, Social Democracv in Manitoba: A History of the CCF-NDP (Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press, 1983), p. 54; Tim Buck's report on CCF Convention, Pacific Tribune, 10 September 1948.

Draft Resolution of the National Executive of the LPP, Pacific Tribune, 5 November 1948.

Penner, The Canadian L e f ~ p. 104.

1 1 . . Minutes of quarterly District Council meeting, 3 October 1948.

1.2. S tanton, Never Sav Die!, p. 207.

13. Rid , p. 201; White, A Hard Man to Bea, p. 17 1.

15. Proceedings of Constituent Convention of the Woodworkers' Union of Canada, Vancouver, 23-24 October 1948, Officers' Report, supplement 14, Pritchett Papers, box 1 1, file 1.

w 1

16. Vancower b, 20 and 2 1 October 1948.

17. Sekora to Secretary of LRB, 10 January and 9 Febmary 1949, IWA Records, roll , 3, file - 1948-49, Labour Relations Board.

18. Minutes of Vancouver Committee of LRB meetings, 22 November and 8 December 1948, GR 1038.

4 19. Minutes of Vancouver Committee of LRB meetings, 19 November, 30 November,

2 Wember, 19 December 1948, GR 1038; Vancouver &Q, 3, 8, 9, lo, 11, 13 Decemkr 1948.

-20. ,̂ I W A Records, roll 3, file - 1949, Organizers' Reports.

21. Beeching and Dr. Phyllis Clarke, eds., Ruck (Toronto: NC Press La, 1977), p. 366.

NatimdAshives of Can& e

Canada. Records of the Department of ~ a b o g RG 27. -

9 . Records of the National Wai Labour Board, 194U947. RG 36/4. g

. Records of the Wartime Prices and Trade Board. RG 64. . . fiblic Archives of Bntxsh Calumtna

British Columbia. Records of 'the Department of Labourf (files of conciliation commissioners appointed to investigate disputes under the Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Act). GR 1873. *

. Records of the Labour Relations Board. GR 1086 (correspondence, reports, briefs, memos regarding the establishment and operation of the LRB). GR 1087 (correspondence, reports, briefs, memos regarding activities of members, 1948-1952). GR 1038 (minutes of meetings). -

. Records of the Premier's Office. GR 1222.

Gordon S loan. Files and notebooks regarding industrial arbitrations undertaken, 1 943- - 1958. Add Mss 1057.

tv of Bntlsh ralumb . . . .

'a1 Collections D . . *

la L~brarv - S~ec l lmslon A British Columbia. Proceedings of the Royal Commission on the Forest Resources of

British Colum.a, 1944 1945.

Records of the Council of Forest Industries of British Columbia.

Records of the International Woodworkers of America, Western Canadian Regional Council No. 1. .

Angus MacInnis Memorial Collection. .

Harold F'ritchett - International Woodworkers of America District Council No. 1, Papers.

fohn Stanton, Papers.

R e ~ d s of the Trade Union Research Bureau (includes Pacific Co& Labour Bureau).

Forest Industrial Relations Lmted: Vadmrver. Bnhsh Co -, . . I1 . . lurnbia

Records of Forest Industrial Relations Ltd. (includes Stuart Research Services Ltd.)

b

t

British Cohbia. "~cpdrt of 6; Commissioner thl Honourable Gordh McO. $loan, '

6

Chief Justice of ~rit&h Columbia, relating tb the Forest Resources of British . *

Columbia.'' B.C., Sessional 1946. I 3.4 6. n @ -2

Victoria: King 's/Queen ' s Printer, 1938- 1949.

. m. Victoria: King's/Queen 's Printer, 1936- 1954. - C - 7 . . Department of Trade and Industry. Bureau of Economics and Stati 'cs.

Forest Indus es of R.C, Part II, Section 1. /"" Buck, T b . gee^ Canada Indwden t . Summary of Report to Meeting of Labour . . 0

Progressive Party, National Committee, Toronto, 6-9 January, 1948. '.

\

99 - reat to World Peace. Toronto: Labour Progressive Party, 1945. I

*- -

Greenall, Jack. The I.W.A. Fiasco: A Political Analvsis of a Stranee Event F . Vancower: Progressive Workers Movement, 1965. j

International Woodworkers of America. B . C. District. Submission to Stuart Research Ltd., k 1946 Industry-wide Negotiations, $6 March 1946.

. District Council No. 1. Proceedings of Annual Conventions.

. District Council No. 1, with Stuart Research Services Ltd. (later Forest I

Industrial Relations Ltd.). - Master Agreements, 1945- 1960.

. International. Proceedings of Annual Conventions. . . . Western Canadian Regional Council No. 1. The 1WA in B n a

Columbia. Vancouver: 197 1.

3. Newspipem and Pendcak . .

British Colukbia Lumberman, 1940- 1960. q

. . an IJmolll~f, 1941-1951.

Jndustrial Canad& 1941 - 1959:

Fkcific Tribune, 1945- 1959.

' Vancouvei News H d d , 1942-1948.

Vancouver ]Province, 1936 1959.

Vancouver & 1936- 1959.

Western Busiwss and m, 1945-1951.

7-

' Billings, J.M. 29 September 1987. '

Bjarnason,.Ed. 6 October 1987.

Caron, Cfiarlgs. 4 September 1987. 1 , PJ Edwards,Lionel. 3 December 1987.

Greenwell, Arcbie. 7 July 1976. Interviewed by Allen Seager. 4

Marcuse, Bert. 17 June 1983. Intaviewed by Ian MCDonald.

McDonald, La. 10 April 1987. ,

Smton, John. 10 February 1987; :) July 1988.

Aylen, Peter. "Sustained Yield Forestry in'l3.C. to 1956: A Deterministic Analysis of develop men^" M.A.. thesis, University of Victoria, 1984.

Coates, Daniel. "Organized Labour and Politics in Canada: The Development of a National Lab6u.r Code." Ph.D. thesis, Comell University, 1973.

, . C d e y , James R o b "Class Conflict and Collective Action in the Working Class of

Vancouver." PhD, thesis, Carleton University, 1986.

Deutsch, J.J., u. ."Economies of &nary Production in ~ h t i s h Columbia." Volumes I and IV. Unpublished Manuscript, University of British Columbia, 1959.

Fisher, ~ o b & . 'The Decline of ~f>fo'm: British Columbia Politics in the 1930s." Paper presented to4the Fourth 3.f. Studies Conference, Victoria, 7 November 1986.

Gray, Stephen. "Forest Policy and Administration in British Columbia, 19 12- 1928." M.A. thesis, Simon Fraser University, 1982.

Hak, Gordon. " 0 n the Fringes: Capital and Labour the Forest Economies of the Port Alberni and Prince George ~ i&ic t s , British Columbia."@ Ph.D. thesis, Simon Fraser University, 1996.

Johnson, Ross AEnxL "No Compromise - No Political Trading: The Marxian Socialist Tradition in British Columbia." Ph.D. thesis, Universitysf British Columbia, 1975.

Knox, Pad. "The Passage of Bill 39: Reform and Repression in British Columbia's Labour Policy." M.A. thesis, University of British Columbia, 1974.

- Lawrence, Joseph C. "Markets and Capital: A astory of the Lumber Industry of British Columbia (1778-1952)." MA thesis, LJr$vursity of British Columbia, 1957.

Lembckq, Jerry. "The Enternational Woodwork$rs of America: An Internal Comparative Sbdy of Two Regions." R.D. ihesis, university of Oregon, 1978.

~ c ~ o n a l d , ' b n . "Class Conflict and Political Factionalism: A History of Local 213 of the TRmqtional Brnthdood of Electrid Workers, 1901 - 1961 ." M.A. thesis, Sim"on Fraser University, 1986.

A

Muldoon, Donald "Capitalism Unchallenged: A Sketch of Canadian Comrnuqism, 1939- 1949." M.A. thesis, Simon Fraser University, 1977.

Pentland, H.C. "A Study of the Changing Social, Economic and Political Background of e the Canadian System of hdustrial Relations." Draft Study prepared for Task Force

06 Labour Relations, 1968.

Phillips, "The British Columbia Labour Movement in the Inter-War Period: A Study of its Social and Political Aspects." Ph.D. thesis, University of London, 1967.

Rajala, Richard. 'The Rude science: ~ e c h n o l o ~ ~ and Management in the West Coast Logging Industry, 1890-1930." Paper presented to the Fourth B.C. Studies e

Conference, Victoria, 7 November 1986.

. "Technological and Managerial Control in the West Coast bggiCg Lndustry . " Unpublished preliminary report.

Sager, Allen. "The History of the Mine Workers' Union of Canada, 1925-1936." M.A. thesis, McGiU Universi,~, 1977. . .

Storey, Robert. "Workers, Unions and Steel: The Shaping of the Hamilton Working Class, 1935- 1948." Ph.D. thesis, University of Toronto, 198 1 .

Warrim, Peter J. '"Labour is not a Commodity:' A Study of the Rights of Labour in the Canadian Postwar Economy, 1944-1948." Ph.D. thesis, University of Waterloo, 1986. .

6

Wrlliams, M. Jeanne Meyers. "Ethnicity and Class Conflict in Fraser MillsLMaillardville: The Strike of 1931." M.A. thesis, Simon Fraser University, 1982.

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